MAGOGO, Uganda (AP) — Some call them the continent’s greatest natural resource, the bevy of children who account for so much of Uganda’s population.

They watch curiously from a hillside and sail across soccer fields and smile from the backs of their mothers.

There are some 25 million children in Uganda, about half the country’s population, and their numbers are a credit its successes. Vaccination drives to combat diseases such as measles, campaigns to distribute mosquito nets to reduce cases of malaria, and a host of other programs have combined to send infant and child mortality plummeting over the decades.

But the lives of Africa’s future are, in many ways, intertwined with those of its past.

The bookended age groups of children and older people suffer the highest poverty rates. They

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