The demographic dividend is not a gift; it is a loan. Africa''s working-age population will roughly double by 2050, and the interest on that loan is paid in jobs — formal, productive, taxable employment.

The arithmetic is unforgiving: the continent must create more formal jobs per year than it has ever created, in economies whose institutions were designed for extraction, not enrollment. Some states are building the fiscal machinery to try. The dividend will arrive either way. The question is whether it is collected or squandered.