Ultimately this can all be boiled down to the idea if working smarter not harder. Unfortunately mankinds definition of smart varies as as wildly as their actual intelligence
Not even. I think it's more about, what to work towards - i.e. the goal. I mean, feeding hungry people is definitely a worthwhile goal, but... you have to do it again, tomorrow. It's not a scalable solution.
I think the goals of NGOs working in that space are generally in the right place. It's true that they seldom do anything scalable in the sense of transformational research or marked improvement in processes, but the structure (of funding) somewhat prevents them to. I think the most scalable thing we can do for poor countries right now is make information, education and food and essential medication as available and as cheap as possible for as much of their population as possible, and let these children's children save themselves.