COLUMN: TANZANIA TRENDS. SMART data: Tanzania’s magnet for investors

APROMISING country with massive growth potential but all you’ve got is last year’s budget speech, a PDF from the National Bureau of Statistics, and three PowerPoint presentations with no interactive data.

The potential is obvious agriculture, minerals, tourism, a stable political environment. But the clarity? The numbers? The depth? It’s not there. We talk a lot about investment readiness in Tanzania ease of doing business, infrastructure, bureaucracy. But what we don’t talk about enough is data readiness. International investors don’t just invest in countries; they invest in clarity.

They want to know, What sectors are growing? Where is consumer spending rising? Which regions are underserved or booming? What’s the return on capital in real terms? Where’s the risk and where’s the upside?

In a country like Tanzania, with a GDP now pushing 85 billion US dollars, not having easy access to this information is like selling a 5-star hotel without photos. And a 60-page statistical abstract in PDF isn’t enough anymore. Globally, we’ve entered the age of data-driven capital.

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According to the OECD, 75 per cent of institutional investors now rely on real-time or near real-time data for investment decisions.

The World Bank’s Investment Climate team emphasises data transparency as one of the top 3 indicators that boost foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows.

Even Africa-focused funds like Partech Africa and Helios Investment Partners have cited access to localised, granular data as a factor in their country selection strategies. It’s simple: investors no longer gamble.

They model. And to model, you need data granular, visual, reliable data. Tanzania has the data. It’s just not being used or showcased strategically. The TRA collects deep revenue data from every region and sector.

NBS has household surveys, poverty maps, population projections. Telcos have mobile money and SIM card penetration data by district. Banks collect SME financing patterns, loan performance, sector risk. But all this information is either locked in PDFs, scattered in silos, or inaccessible unless you’re a government insider or a local consultant.

If Tanzania wants to attract long-term, meaningful international capital the kind that builds factories, launches tech hubs, and funds agribusiness here are 5 core data areas we must prioritise: Rwanda’s Irembo Gov portal makes investment documentation digital and trackable.

Ghana has an open data investment portal that features project pipelines, sector trends, and real-time business registration stats. Rwanda attracted over 2.0 billion US dollars in FDI between 2018–2023, a huge chunk of it outside traditional aid sectors. Ghana became a top-3 destination for tech FDI in West Africa, with data-driven credibility playing a key role.

If they can do it, why not Tanzania? This isn’t about fancy AI tools or multi-million-dollar portals. It’s about repurposing what already exists, and framing it for international eyes.

A PDF map converted into a mobile-friendly investment heatmap? Possible in days. Partnering with telecoms to release anonymized regional digital activity stats? Doable. The opportunity is not in more data. It’s in activating the data we already have. Data is no longer just a tool for analysts. It’s a diplomat.

A storyteller. A pitch deck. A bridge between Tanzanian potential and global capital. If we want the world to bet on us, we must show them the odds clearly, consistently, and confidently. And the good news? The numbers are already here. We just need to turn them into influence.