The work of charity is usually destroyed by the work of government, which is what happens when people opt for the political solution rather than the humanitarian.

Nations are never really honest, except in that you know they will be selfish in fulfilling their interests. Sometimes those interests are to make themselves look good, sometimes they are profit (which includes stabilizing other nations), but their interest is never really selfless. There are too many mouths to feed back home already.

Charity can allow people to circumvent those whose goal is to direct the funds of others. In some cases it also fulfills an imperative role of exposing the realities rather than the perceptions of a situation. My main thought in one of the more dramatic examples of this is the Belgian Congo.