We can build more toilets (aren't we already?) or we can educate next generation to aspire to do something great.
Every ~2500rs spent on colechristensen's basic income is one less toilet. That's the core calculation.
And yes, I do think the money spent on the Mars orbiter was just an exercise in national pride and would have been better spent on toilets, protecting women's dignity, literacy/arithmetic/english and similar low hanging fruit.
When start-ups compete against big corporations, do they try to follow corporate crap and other slow things? The advantage of being second is that you can learn from those ahead of you.
Although I agree that at least basic sanitation is more important than this, but this is not the case in general. In general, we need to invest in next generation technologies and advancements. Only then can we create income sources which dwarf all coming from the advancements of rest of the world.