Empowering women is a goal of many development programs, both as a primary objective and a tool for increasing family welfare and stimulating economic development. Conventional wisdom suggests that empowered women invest more in children, and this has translated into policy: Many large-scale cash transfer programs are designed to target women. However, the evidence to support this idea is limited to a small number of studies, mostly reflecting shifts in empowerment driven by increases in total household resources.
Photo credit: John Baptist Wandera/CIFOR
