Dr Jotham Musinguzi, Uganda’s leading population adviser, has the serenity of a man who can do no more. A former gynaecologist and obstetrician with a methodical, gentle voice, Musinguzi is the director of Uganda’s Population Secretariat, which advises the government on population policy. And for 10 years he has been asking the same question: “Are we ready?”

The answer has always been no. Recovering from civil war and an HIV prevalence rate that peaked at 30 per cent in the 1990s, Uganda now has one of the world’s fastest-growing populations. There are twice as many Ugandans today as there were 20 years ago, and there will be twice as many again – about 60 million – by 2030. By 2050, Uganda is expected to have 103 million citizens: a shade more, if current trends continue, than Russia. But it is not so much the size of the population as its structure that has Musinguzi concerned: Uganda is also the world’s youngest country, with more than half of its population – 56 per cent – under the age of 18.