Why telecom sustainability should count as a national success measure

By Venance Mwihechi

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, and families have exchanged money across the country. These everyday transactions rely on infrastructure that few people ever see, but almost everyone depends on.

As Tanzania embarks on implementing Dira 2050, the national conversation has understandably focused on the visible foundations of development: roads, railways, ports and power. These investments remain indispensable. Yet the country’s long-term competitiveness will depend just as much on an invisible layer of infrastructure that must be continually upgraded, secured, powered and maintained.

Every mobile payment, every online business, every digital public service, every data-enabled classroom and every farmer using digital market information depends on resilient telecommunications networks. That is why telecommunications sustainability should be treated as a national development outcome, rather than simply an industry concern. Because it is an argument about the conditions required for Tanzania’s digital economy to continue growing.

Recent results from Vodacom Tanzania PLC, for the quarter ended June 2026, provide a useful illustration of what sustained investment looks like in practice. During the quarter, the company invested Sh123.2 billion in broadband expansion and modernisation of its Radio Access Network, the mobile network layer that connects phones to digital services. Over the same period, data customers increased by 16 per cent, M-Pesa customers by 15.5 per cent, smartphone customers by 23 per cent and the overall customer base grew to 28.6 million. Those figures speak to more than commercial growth; they show substantial investment translating into greater participation in the digital economy.

Financial inclusion increasingly means more than opening an account. Digital platforms are translating into daily upliftment; enabling citizens to save collectively, giving small businesses access to working capital, helping merchants digitise payments and allowing more Tanzanians to invest and build financial resilience. As evident in the report, Vodacom’s  M-Koba now serves more than 1.5 million users, while SMEs account for more than half of all the about Sh1 trillion digital loans disbursed through its lending ecosystem during the quarter. Its merchant network has grown to more than 650,000 businesses processing over Sh2 trillion in transactions each month.

These are company figures, but they reflect a broader national trend that Tanzania should be energised by. Formal financial inclusion among Tanzanian adults reached 76 percent in the 2023 FinScope survey, up from 65 per cent in 2017, illustrating how digital financial services have become an increasingly important gateway into the formal economy.

National communications data point in the same direction. Tanzania now records well over 110 million active mobile subscriptions and rapidly growing data consumption, demonstrating how deeply connectivity has become embedded in commerce, education, finance and public service delivery. At the same time, smartphone adoption remains at 42.5 percent, highlighting that expanding access to digital opportunity remains unfinished business.

 A country does not become digitally competitive simply because networks exist. It succeeds because those networks continue improving as demand grows. Every additional citizen using digital financial services, every school adopting online learning, every health facility digitising patient records, every entrepreneur selling products 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.

This is where telecommunications should increasingly be viewed through the same lens as transport or energy. Governments do not judge roads by whether they were once constructed. They judge them by whether they continue to support economic activity year after year. Telecommunications deserve the same perspective.

Dira 2050 recognises that Tanzania’s future prosperity will depend on digital transformation, productivity, innovation and a competitive private sector. As implementation moves forward, the question is no longer whether digital infrastructure matters. It is whether the country’s implementation and monitoring framework gives sufficient attention to the long-term sustainability of the networks on which those ambitions depend.

That creates a practical opportunity. Alongside traditional measures of infrastructure development, Tanzania should monitor indicators that reflect the long-term health of its digital foundations, including sustained network investment, expansion of broadband access, growth in smartphone adoption and the resilience of communications infrastructure that underpins digital public services and financial inclusion. Such an approach would reinforce the shared objective of government, regulators and industry: ensuring that digital infrastructure continues to evolve alongside national development priorities.

The real test of Tanzania’s digital ambition is therefore not whether the country has networks today. It is whether it has created an economic environment that allows those networks to keep improving tomorrow. The Government should enable sustainable investment conditions that can compete on a continental and global scale, drawing in capital and transforming the digital landscape. A digitally empowered Tanzania needs an invisible grid as resilient as the citizens, farmers, SMEs, students, women, youth and rural communities it serves.

If Dira 2050 is to become the blueprint for a more productive, inclusive and competitive economy, telecommunications investment should be recognised for what it has become: one of the country’s most important forms of national infrastructure – Critical Economic Infrastructure.

Venance Mwihechi is a telecommunications policy analyst based in Dar es Salaam