With regard to your first paragraph, it's often the other way around; trying to cater to people's material needs from several thousand miles away through multip

With regard to your first paragraph, it's often the other way around; trying to cater to people's material needs from several thousand miles away through multiple layers of agency problems often ends up doing more harm than good, distorting local economies, encouraging corruption and undermining the efforts of developing countries to build a stable society. If people have literacy and Internet access, they have access to all the world's knowledge and a better chance of helping themselves; if you would send gifts, send those. I agree entirely with your second paragraph, however.