The Copenhagen Consensus Center (CCC) is a non-profit think-tank, that has published economic cost-benefit analyses on global issues since 2004. It is headed by Bjørn Lomborg. In the chronological history of prominent effective altruists, I think he is the 2nd behind Peter Singer (but that's besides the point).
The CCC has high standards of research, and has employed top economists since its inception, including Nobel Prize winners. It has previously published large reports in 2o04, 2008, 2012 & 2015. It's recommendations were usually similar to the ones in the EA movement (child nutrition, immunization, malaria, deworming etc.), but with a larger focus on economic policy.
About 4 months ago, the CCC has published its Halftime for the Sustainable Development Goals 2016-2030.
A book based on this report has received good reviews from the chief economist of the world bank, Nobel Prize winning economist Vernon Smith, and Bill Gates. Anyways, the report mentions some interventions that are seldom, or even never, talked about in the EA community, along with other more familiar ones.
The things that I've barely/never seen EA talk about are land tenure security, e-procurement and agricultural R&D.
Agricultural R&D is good for obvious reasons.
Land tenure is interesting - according to CCC:
Globally, 70 percent of the world’s population has no access to formal land registration systems. One-in-five, or almost a billion people, consider it likely or very likely they will be evicted in the next five years.
[...] When farmers know they own their land, they are more willing to make expensive investments to increase long-term productivity. They can also use their land deed as collateral to borrow money for investments like farm equipment or property expansion.
[...] The researchers show that the total benefits of providing more secure urban tenure would therefore be about $160 billion, or 30-times the costs.
e-procurement is also interesting:
In the countries where the poorer half of the world’s population lives, procurement makes up an astounding half of all government expenditure.
This procurement can be made less corrupt and more effective by putting the whole system online, making it transparent. Electronic procurement or “e-procurement” lets many more companies hear about procurement offers, ensures more bids can be submitted and means governments lose less money through corruption and waste.
[...] For each dollar spent, the low-income country will realize savings worth $38. For lower-middle income countries, the average savings are more than $5 billion over the first 12 years, meaning each dollar spent creates more than $300 of social benefits. This makes e-procurement one of the world’s most effective policies.
Thanks Almo.
Unfortunately in Uganda, the registration system heavily favors the rich and connected. It may well be doing more harm than good at the moment, because rich people can try and swipe land from under people's noses by getting land titles and leases, which the more "rightful" owners have no access to.
So as of now in Uganda, perhaps the land insecure poor might be better off of there was no formal system.
Obviously if the registration system was fairer it might be very different.
And some people may disagree too. It's complicated.
My wife just said that many scholars consider that all titling processes are a redistributive process with winners and losers, and more often than not the poor are the losers.
As a philosophical framework I think you are right, perhaps not always as a practical framework. Unfortunately.