Forgive the reheating of old chestnuts, but it seems appropriate to begin with a classic urban myth starring Bono, recently described with due reverence by Viz as "the little twat with a big heart". The apocryphal story finds our hero on stage between songs, intriguing his audience by repeatedly clapping his hands together. "Every time I clap my hands," he finally intones, "a child in Africa dies."

At which point someone in the crowd shouts: "Then stop fucking clapping!"

As I say, it's an old favourite, but it was called to mind this week by news that Bono's ONE campaign had blitzed the New York media with fancy gift boxes. These contained several items, from designer water bottles to $15 bags of Starbucks coffee, as well as information explaining that poverty-stricken African children live on less than $1.25 a day – "about the cost of the cookie in this box".

To which the only reasonable rejoinder would seem to be: "Then stop spending your money on biscuits for journalists."

But let's not be facetious. Naturally, naturally, the business of activism is more complicated than that, and indeed, ONE has since been forced to remind confused civilians that it is an advocacy organisation and not a grant-making organisation. This became necessary after the New York Post revealed that in 2008, the most recent year for which tax records are available, ONE took $14,993,873 in donations from philanthropists, of which a thrifty $184,732 was distributed to charity. More than $8m was spent on executive and employee salaries.

Anyhoo. What Bono's goody bags were trying to draw attention to was his drive to get President Obama to give $6bn to a fund to fight disease in Africa, to coincide with this week's Millennium Development Goals summit taking place in New York.

And yet, if only Bono had spent a little less time thinking about goody bags, and a little bit more on his weekend column in the New York Times, he might not have muddled cause and effect as far as the MDGs were concerned. "The gains made by countries like Ghana," ran a typical statement, "show the progress the Millennium Goals have helped create." Mmm. As Rupa Subramanya Dehejia, who covers the political economy of India for the Wall Street Journal, wrote this week: Bono "would have you believe that Ghana's progress is because of the [Millennium Development] Goals! He further suggests that poor performance in the Congo is due to the financial crises and food shortages. Gasp! Where is my oxygen mask? Have you not heard that Ghana is growing rapidly because of smart economic policies and that Congo is the centre of a war zone which barely has an economy?"

Alas, Rupa, I'm afraid he might not have heard that. Then again, even if he has, Bono is adept at holding two contradictory positions in his own mind. Do consider his endless lobbying of the Irish government to earmark more cash for said MDGs, despite having shifted part of U2's tax affairs to the Netherlands to avoid paying even the ludicrously reduced rates Ireland affords to artists. Has he not heard that the money in the Irish exchequer's coffers comes from taxes, paid by the sublebrity likes of nurses and teachers and bricklayers and so on? Perhaps his clapping drowns it out.

Still, as far as those goody bags go, Lost in Showbiz can only sigh at what seems to be a growing trend for importing the customs of the celebrity world into the humanitarian world. Why, only tomorrow night, Peta will be holding its Humanitarian Awards at the Hollywood Palladium.

I know what you're thinking: at last, an awards ceremony for the unsung heroes of the animal rights world, who devote their lives to the cause, as opposed to highly paid entertainers who give a couple of afternoons to starring in some crass ad campaign for Peta's charmless president Ingrid Newkirk, who compares meat eating to the Holocaust.

In which case, you may be disappointed by Peta's press release, which announces that "awardees" are Simon Cowell, Ricky Gervais, Eva Mendes, Angelica Huston, Glee's Lea Michele and Twilight's Kellan Lutz. Yes, we're talking about those kind of humanitarians, making the entire star-frotting exercise yet another example of the burgeoning humanitarian awards industry.

I hate to break it to you, kids, but philanthropy is no longer its own reward. How else to explain the rash of gala nights to honour celebrity humanitarians, which one can't help feeling fosters the perception that no entertainer is capable of a truly selfless good deed?

Next month, for instance, we have the Hollywood Humanitarian awards – although my favourite will always be an event from a couple of years back. Organised by the same people who were going to send Paris Hilton on a mercy mission to Rwanda (a pledge on which the celebutante still has to make good), the Playing For Good International Philanthropic Summit was a three-day event on Mallorca – hosted by Eva Longoria! Were the impression of a neuron-killing luxury jolly not complete, let me add that the climax of the summit was a black tie, gala presentation of the Awards of Charitable Excellence, with the big award presented by none other than Paris herself, in her first formal appearance since being released from jail. What can you say? Other than caring never looked so hot.