Population dividend? What we do in the next few years will make the difference

What is often mistaken for aggressiveness when I write or speak is passion, about the subject, about the continent. I am already bracing for the ‘You can have said it in a nicer way’ barrage of feedback. The continued societal pressure to respond to what is actually violence with gentleness. Preempting this by saying, no. I will not.

I am a huge fan of the burning grass approach, where you set your grass on fire deliberately, not out of destruction, but to clear what is dead, make room for what is coming, and let the ecosystem reset. The jury is still out on whether the grass grows back better. Maybe just different is enough. That is essentially what this article is: a lit match. Not to burn everything down, but to clear the air.

I wrote this in November 2025. Filter it through that lens.

Anyway, I often take my cues from the universe, and boy, did she deliver for this article. Here is what she handed me; a single paragraph from the New York Times that said, more plainly than I ever could, exactly what I had been thinking about.

Here is an excerpt from their piece:

“Instead of demanding that the Saudi government protect these women, President William Ruto of Kenya pledged to send even more workers to Saudi Arabia, more quickly and less prepared than before. And he instituted policies that made it more profitable for employment companies to do just that.”

That’s what I was missing: a live, glaring example of why what we are doing today is exactly what we will be doing at scale tomorrow, and why it is not helpful at all.

The more you read that article, the clearer it becomes that the tall tale we have been telling ourselves about the “population dividend” is just… more people. What really gets on my last damn nerve is how we keep repeating the rhetoric that Africa’s doubling youth population is anything but a recipe for exactly what is playing out in Kenya - A disaster.

The AI of AI or whatever.

There are things people love to say on panels, “ AI. The AI in AI. The AI of AI. AI” this one is more recent, but some industry OGs loved the “Silicon Savannah”, “ Female founders” “ Crypto” “ Blockchain”. For the purposes of this article, I am talking about the “Africa will have the biggest youth population in the year…”

Let me give you some background: every conference I have attended (and there have been many), with pride, excitement, cheers, and a few “hallelujahs,” I have heard someone say that by 2035, Africa will have the largest youth population on Earth (By absolute number and not just median). The idea, I assume, is that more young people means more economic productivity. Through the population dividend theory, which essentially hopes to leverage “the economic growth that can occur when a country's age structure shifts to have a larger proportion of working-age people compared to dependents”

But why would it? What exactly is being done to make that possible?

I wrote this article long before the New York Times handed me the evidence, but seeing it spelt out so plainly just confirms how real this threat is.

I am genuinely asking: can someone show me the cause and effect? Why should having the biggest youth population automatically translate to an economic edge? By itself?

What do we think will change in the next 10 years to keep this from becoming a pressure cooker, with more people fighting for fewer jobs, more strain on education, healthcare and more demand for food and land?

Today, India and China hold the largest youth populations on earth. And yet neither their size nor their youth alone is what drove their economic transformation. It was deliberate industrialisation, skills investment, and policy. Africa's youngest markets are approaching a similar demographic moment, but without any of the infrastructure that made that moment meaningful elsewhere. More young people will arrive. The boom will not.

But here is the uncomfortable truth: Africa already has a massive youth population. It has not led to rapid economic transformation. In fact, as the New York Times showed, we are stepping closer to the ledge:

“Other nations have successfully pressed Saudi Arabia for stronger worker protections and increased wages. Kenya has not. Mr. Ruto’s government has positioned Kenyans as among the cheapest, least-protected workers in the marketplace.”

What I do not hear enough is people talking about skilling, technical education, manufacturing, or value addition. Right now, it sounds like we just want more maids, farmhands, and airport workers.

The theory goes like this: when a country has a large working-age population and fewer dependents, economic growth can skyrocket. What we are not talking about is the huge IF attached.

This only works IF:

I am sure there are many more “IF’s” where those came from, but I don’t have the dexterity in my fingers to type all that.

We already have the youth bulge. So where is the boom? Instead, growth is sluggish, unemployment is rampant, and industrialisation is weak.

Take Uganda: 78% of the population is under 30. Youth unemployment was 2.9% in 2024 😄 Or so we say, however, what we fail to mention is that more than 89% of those jobs are informal, with a majority earning less than $50 monthly. No amount of more people will make this equate to an economic boom.

If the demographic dividend were automatic, Uganda would already be thriving. Instead, we are stuck waiting for a future boom that may never come. All things held constant.

All the while, politicians are making a business out of sending poor citizens abroad, citizens who must choose between feeding their families and their dignity, not to mention the very real risk of death.

“...But today in Kenya, a New York Times investigation found, Mr. Ruto’s government functions as an arm of a staffing industry that sends poor workers abroad in droves. Politicians started their own employment companies to capitalize on the boom, and the government rolled back worker protections, maximizing industry profits.”

Some policymakers say that Uganda’s population, currently 45 million, will double by 2050, creating a larger workforce and consumer base. But more people alone do not guarantee prosperity. Consider:

The Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan and China) did not grow just because they had young populations. They grew because they:

In contrast, Africa's youth bulge has mostly led to informal trading, subsistence farming, and underpaid gig work, not industrial transformation. Kenya and Uganda had versions of the same window. What was never built, deliberately, stubbornly; were the factories, the technical schools, and the worker protections that would have made their young populations an engine rather than an export.

Speaking of which, at what age do I start declining to be paid in coffees and exposure?

Waiting for 2035 will not magically fix things. We need action now:

✔ Focus on job creation, not just population growth. Prioritise manufacturing, agro-processing, and tech hubs - and access to capital for SMEs

✔ Fix education. Stop producing graduates with unusable degrees; prioritise skills that match market demands.

✔ Cut red tape. Starting and operating a business should be made easier than it’s ever been.

✔ Improve governance. Corruption and instability scare away investors and industries that could facilitate the employ of millions.

✔ Support small businesses and invest heavily in technology.

✔ Stop treating cheap, unprepared, unprotected labour as an export commodity. Every time I say words about African governments, I can’t believe I have to say them. It’s like those times where you have to tell your toddler, they can’t lick the slipper and you realise, damn, I just said those words in that combination 😃

I am no economist (Despite what my degree claims), but surely we are aware that there is more to be done.

The demographic dividend is not a guarantee; it is an opportunity that must be seized. Africa already has the youth. What it lacks is the structured education, the manufacturing industry, the jobs, the skills, the access to capital, and the policies to turn them into an economic engine.

Instead of dreaming about 2035, we should be asking: why are we not solving these problems today? Because if we do not, having a bigger youth population will just mean twice as many people struggling to survive.

And twice as many people for your politicians to sell.

Please let me know if you are seeing more progress toward turning the youth we already have into the economic engine we hope to have.

I know this is an oversimplification, but I hope we are having the hard conversation as well. What that article revealed should shake you all to the core. 

2035? Meanwhile, we have skipped 2030 and all the many years in between, and are seemingly doing nothing. Be so for real, dear.

“Mr Wahome said that women brought abuse upon themselves by being insufficiently servile. He denied that women had been thrown from buildings. Rather, he said, they try to escape their employers by rappelling from windows using bedsheets,  then fall because they misjudge the height.”

“You know women,” he said. “They don’t know how to calculate.”

These are the people we are relying on to make these changes?

Let’s wait for 2035 and hope for the best, I guess.

All quotes from Kenyan Workers Get Abused Abroad. The President’s Family and Allies Profit From the New York Times