Médecins sans Frontières seeks permission to redeploy Tsuanami donations - Gulf News

Charities often allow donors to designate how the gift will be used. This encourages giving even though it often has no effect on how the charity would allocate its expenditures. This is true as long as the total designated to any category is less than the charity would voluntarily allocate. Of course this implies sufficient contributions/funding without strings attached.

MSF is well informed about humanitarian needs throughout the world - better informed than donors. Evidently it has concluded that it could continue to spend the designated funds in the tsunami region, but it cannot in good conscience knowing what it knows about its capabilities, and the needs in other parts of the world.