Not to be a downer but an academic study found this to have limited effect. I heard about it on freakonomics so can't vouch for how biased it was. Just an interesting point against the economist article. http://freakonomics.com/2013/09/26/would-a-big-bucket-of-cas...
The Economist article talks about someone in Kenya being given $1000USD. That's about 84800KSH.
Minimum wage for Kenya varies, but 4855KSH ($57USD) per month is what a general laborer gets.[1]
That person is getting very roughly 17 months income. That's very different to "winning the lottery".
But perhaps this man is one of the 50% of Kenyans living below the poverty line.[2] ($2USD per day) So, if he gets $1.25USD per day a $1000USD lump sum would be a bit more than 2 years income.
Microfinance is not the wonder that people once thought it was[3], but giving money to people directly seems to work quite well.
