Routinely handing out water/food/necessities also inhibits innovation in local people starting businesses and efficient services to provide that for themselves. You could give someone water, or give someone a few thousand dollars to build a well. Even if you go in and build a well for them, it discourages someone starting their own self-sustaining enterprise or organization to do that on their own, locally.

Let's revise this old cliche: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime. Give him money to start a fishing school, feed the village forever. Give him money to do whatever he wants, and he might start an institution more beneficial than a fishing school.