In the decade-and-a-half since the 2008 global financial crisis, “growth” has become the dominant policy chant across Uganda and much of sub-Saharan Africa—celebrated in boardrooms, parliaments, and donor briefings as proof that the continent has finally “turned the corner.” Yet per-capita income still languishes below US$1,000, and every third household teeters on the edge of destitution.

Using firm-, household-, and labour-force micro-data, this paper interrogates the mirage of headline GDP expansion that leaves the majority behind. This paper investigates the impact of growth in a sample of 50 countries in terms of the benefits that growth was able to deliver for its members.

More than seventy years since the end of World War II, “growth” is the most sought-after goal and yet the most elusive one for many economies. To a large extent, most developing economies have been highly successful in increasing economic output. But has such an impressive increase in national output actually improved people’s standard of living?

A fast-growing economy is in a better shape to tackle many of its inherent problems, such as infrastructural deficiencies, unemployment, and poverty, and to provide opportunities for its members to function at their highest capacity. Unfortunately, that very ray of hope has been extinguished.

The most evident sign of this failure of the global economy is in the form of rising youth unemployment. In Europe alone, around 15 million young people remain unemployed. In Italy, one out of every four young people is out of the workforce. Youth unemployment is a far more serious issue than it appears to be at first glance. It is a reflection of eroding potential and another impending crisis.