But Bono's Irish and the RED campaign was launched in London.
[WS:] That applies to Brits as well, albeit in a somewhat lesser extent. I'd say, based on our international research on nonprofits http://www.jhu.edu/%7Ecnp/ that philanthropy and charity are mainly an English speaking phenomenon, which is perceived as patrician and paternalistic outside the English speaking world (cf. the Franco-Iberian concept of "social economy" which entails work cooperatives and mutuals). In many developing countries charity has often negative connotations linked to the colonial past, and in Scandinavia it is viewed as a product of social inequality that those societies reject.
If you look at our data presented at the above web site, you will see that charitable giving is really tiny in comparison to earned income and government support in every single country - both as a share of all nonprofit revenue and as a share of the GDP. Only two exceptions are the US - most of which is individual giving to religion, plus private foundation support of the arts, research programs etc, and Israel, which entails substantial diaspora philanthropy.
Wojtek