In 2018, a non-profit gave every adult in western Kenya's Ahenyo village $500.
Most of their families had lived in extreme poverty for generations, and this sum was roughly equivalent to most recipients' annual salaries.
Despite all this, the money came with no strings attached outside a commitment to speak with researchers after two years.
They hoped this influx of cash would lift the villagers out of poverty.
But they also knew this could easily be the latest in a long line of failed philanthropic interventions.
In the 1960s, charitable organizations began ramping up their philanthropic efforts, spending billions funding education, job training, agricultural development, infrastructure projects, and health care programs in attempts to help poor countries.
These programs hoped to create a springboard of knowledge and capital that would foster financial independence and bolster struggling economies.
But when economists started studying this kind of aid in the late 90s and early 2000s, they made some surprising discoveries.
After running various randomized control trials, where one group received education or job training and another group did not, the researchers found this kind of aid often had minimal impact.
School supplies failed to improve education.
