Telecom Sustainability: Why It Matters to Tanzania’s Future
Before the first commuter boards a bus in Dar es Salaam, before a trader opens a market stall in Mwanza, and before a farmer checks the latest crop prices, millions of digital interactions have already taken place.
Payments have been processed. Savings groups have collected contributions. Businesses have placed orders. Families have transferred money across the country. These everyday transactions depend on infrastructure that few people see but almost everyone relies on.
As Tanzania begins implementing Dira 2050, the national conversation has understandably focused on the visible foundations of development: roads, railways, ports and electricity. These investments remain essential. However, telecom sustainability will also play a crucial role in determining the country’s long-term competitiveness.
The country’s future depends on an invisible layer of infrastructure that requires continuous investment, upgrades, security and maintenance.
Every mobile payment, online business, digital public service, data-enabled classroom and farmer accessing market information depends on resilient telecommunications networks.
That is why telecom sustainability should count as a national development outcome, not merely an industry concern. The issue goes beyond the performance of telecom companies. It is about creating the conditions that allow Tanzania’s digital economy to grow and remain competitive over the long term.
Telecom Sustainability and Tanzania’s Digital Growth
Recent results from Vodacom Tanzania PLC for the quarter ended June 2026 provide a useful illustration of what sustained telecommunications investment can achieve.
During the quarter, the company invested TZS123.2 billion in broadband expansion and the modernisation of its Radio Access Network, the mobile network layer that connects users to digital services.
Over the same period, data customers increased by 16 per cent, M-Pesa customers by 15.5 per cent and smartphone customers by 23 per cent. The company’s overall customer base also grew to 28.6 million.
These figures represent more than commercial growth. They demonstrate how continued investment in telecommunications infrastructure can expand participation in the digital economy.
Digital Financial Services Are Expanding Economic Participation
Financial inclusion increasingly means more than simply opening a bank account.
Digital platforms now enable citizens to save collectively, help small businesses access working capital, allow merchants to accept digital payments and give more Tanzanians opportunities to build financial resilience.
Vodacom’s M-Koba, for example, now serves more than 1.5 million users. SMEs account for more than half of the approximately TZS1 trillion in digital loans disbursed through its lending ecosystem during the quarter.
Meanwhile, its merchant network has grown to more than 650,000 businesses, processing over TZS2 trillion in transactions each month.
These are company figures, but they reflect a broader national trend that Tanzania should recognise and build upon.
Formal financial inclusion among Tanzanian adults reached 76 per cent in the 2023 FinScope survey, up from 65 per cent in 2017. This growth highlights the increasingly important role of digital financial services as a gateway into the formal economy.
National communications data tell a similar story. Tanzania now records well over 110 million active mobile subscriptions, alongside rapidly growing data consumption.
Connectivity has become deeply embedded in commerce, education, finance and public service delivery.
However, smartphone adoption remains at 42.5 per cent, showing that the country still has significant work to do to expand access to digital opportunities.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has set a target of 55 per cent smartphone penetration by 2027.
Closing that gap requires more than affordable devices. It also requires reliable networks and data services that people can afford to use.
Sustainable Networks Are Critical Economic Infrastructure
A country does not become digitally competitive simply because telecommunications networks exist. It succeeds when those networks continue to improve as demand grows.
Every additional citizen using digital financial services, every school adopting online learning, every health facility digitising patient records, every entrepreneur selling online and every farmer accessing market information places additional demands on communications infrastructure.
Capacity that appears sufficient today can become a constraint tomorrow if investment fails to keep pace with demand.
This is why Tanzania’s telecom sustainability should increasingly be viewed through the same lens as transport and energy infrastructure.
Governments do not judge roads simply by whether they were constructed. They assess whether those roads continue to support economic activity year after year.
Telecommunications networks deserve the same perspective.
What Dira 2050 Means for Digital Infrastructure
Dira 2050 recognises that Tanzania’s future prosperity will depend on digital transformation, productivity, innovation and a competitive private sector.
As implementation progresses, the question is no longer whether digital infrastructure matters. The more important question is whether the country’s development and monitoring frameworks give sufficient attention to the long-term sustainability of the networks that support those ambitions.
This creates a practical opportunity.
Alongside traditional measures of infrastructure development, Tanzania should monitor indicators that reflect the long-term health of its digital foundations.
Telecom Sustainability Should Become a National Success Measure
The real test of Tanzania’s digital ambition is not whether the country has telecommunications networks today.
It is whether Tanzania has created an economic environment that allows those networks to keep improving tomorrow.
The government should create sustainable investment conditions that can compete at continental and global levels, attract long-term capital and accelerate the transformation of the country’s digital landscape.
A digitally empowered Tanzania needs an invisible grid that is as resilient as the citizens, farmers, SMEs, students, women, young people and rural communities it serves.
If Dira 2050 is to become a blueprint for a more productive, inclusive and competitive economy, telecom sustainabilitymust be recognised for what it has become: critical economic infrastructure and a fundamental measure of national development success.
The success of Tanzania’s digital future will not be measured only by the number of towers built, kilometres of fibre deployed or mobile subscriptions registered.
It will also be measured by whether the country’s digital infrastructure remains reliable, affordable, inclusive and capable of supporting the next generation of economic growth.
In that sense, telecom sustainability is not simply a telecommunications issue. It is a national development issue
