Admin costs, again

As I suspected: charities' administration costs generally bear no relation to reality. More at the Charity Sleuths

From earthquakes to 9/11

My opinion on your money being siphoned off to Hamas or to 'terror cells' is simple:

• Giving money to international aid is always risky.
• Not all the money will get there, you can be certain of that.
• Not all of it will go where you'd expect it to go - you can be almost as certain of that.
• But when it gets to the right place and is used in the right way it makes a big difference.

I'd also make the point that the charities alleged to have helped terrorist organisations are not big players and you are highly unlikely to have given them money: Interpal is small by aid agency standards (£3m expenditure) and Crescent Relief is miniscule (£70,000). Your only involvement is that your taxes subsidised them fractionally.

A serious charity challenge

I get occasional emails from folk doing mad things for charity, asking to be featured here.

But I'm afraid they are all gazumped by Jean Béliveau whom I met in Malawi two years ago. He is taking 12 years to walk around the world (yep) with the simple aim of promoting the UN proclamation of the "International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-violence for the Children of the World".

He's a tad eccentric, obviously, but also a rare, inspirational man.

He gave his wife two weeks' notice that he was going to do it. But she has stayed with him (in spirit, in their home in Quebec) and updates his website for him.

Having walked the length of Africa, Spain, France and Ireland since I met him, he's just arrived in the north of England, which marks his halfway point and I hope to meet him again when he arrives in London in a few weeks' time.

His view on the real Africa - where, as everywhere, he relied on the generosity of locals for his food and shelter - is the best informed and most thoughtful I have heard. He also knows a lot about boots.

See his progress here.