Finally, Ester Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee argue for the experimental and small scale approach. Africa is so poor not because of a lack of aid, but rather political instability, corruption, mismanagement, and lack of oversight. Thus, the solution is not more aid or less aid, but rather aid that is targeted, responsible, and accounted for. .
In order to fully understand the role of foreign aid we must understand the scale of the aid. Although, the international community contributes to foreign aid, the United States is by far the largest contributor. This is evidenced by the existence of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), "the lead U.S. Government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential" (USAID). USAID aids African nations from Angola to Zimbabwe. The 2015 budget proposal for foreign aid is on the order of 20.1 billion with 9.7 billion going toward specific USAID programs (USAID). A common argument is that a very small portion of the US federal budget, 1% goes to foreign aid. Whether or not the amount of aid is insignificant to the national budget masks the real issue, the waste of money and resources that lead to little to no results. International financial organizations and institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also play a role in getting funds to developing countries in the form of loans and grants. .
In a review of Sachs' The End of Poverty and Easterly's The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, economists at George Mason University, Arielle John and Virgil Henry Storr ask the essential question: can donor countries use foreign aid to help the world's most impoverished? (127). Sachs and Easterly do have commonalities in that both are economists who take issue with the lack of progress considering the large amounts of aid that has been poured into underdeveloped countries (John, Storr 127).
