Is access to these resources really an engineering problem, rather than a matter of political fact? The people with the power to expand access, politicians, don't have any real incentive to.
If we had more people trying to optimize food production, water distribution, Healthcare scaling and management etc, those things would become materially better, fast.
But we are more concerned with optimizing ads so we can buy shit we don't need so..
This undoubtedly needs talented engineers across the disciplines, definitely not just software.