How Huawei Tanzania facilitates achievement of five-year development plan in Tanzania

As Tanzania races to implement the Third and Final Five-Year National Development Plan 2021/22 – 2025/26 of realising competitiveness and industrialization for human development, (Information, Communication and Technology) ICT has been earmarked as a powerful mechanism that can facilitate mass education in pursuit and growth of every aspect (education, agriculture, medical treatment and many others) in the acquisition of knowledge to realise the goals.

In implementation, a Chinese technology Huawei Company has been committed to devoting more human and financial resources, to further assist the Tanzanian government in strengthening the national ICT infrastructure to bridge “digital gap’’-key in transforming and unlocking new economic development possibilities for various sectors, including the blue economy in the country.

This comes with the background that there are some challenges of implementing ICT in Tanzania namely poor ICT infrastructure, lack of ICT skills and knowledge, lack of technical support and lack of trained teachers (who would be ambassadors/trainers of trainees), limiting the use of ICT for teaching and learning in secondary schools, before infiltrating the entire public.

Elaborating on access to ICT in the region’s schools, one realizes that most upcountry schools in comparison to the ones in urban cities like Dar es Salaam, face acute shortage of facilities to be used to educate their pupils as well as teachers on ICT.

Coupled with this is lack of investment and research into the uses of ICT in education, and a lack of capacity of teachers and school leaders to use ICT to enhance the quality of teaching and learning.

This might dovetail to a question that-what is the ICT status in Tanzania?

Currently the ICT in Tanzania is about 50 per cent. Moreover, looking at networked readiness index, Tanzania is below average in Page 12 in many aspects which needs some improvement, despite the observation that ICT is a powerful mechanism in every aspect of education, financial and all public sectors.

Equally-What are the ICT policies in Tanzania?

The ICT Policy for Basic Education (2007) is a set of guidelines desired to position Tanzania at the universal level for which education is being implemented with concerted efforts for pre-primary, primary, secondary and vocational education.

To address these for instance, in September, 2021, Huawei Tanzania run a seven-day training in Dar es Salaam to sharpen more Tanzanians to be able to do more work on data processing instead of depending on experts from abroad.

Seen as a catalyst in continuing to innovate new innovations in the ICT sector, the training would up skill the local workforce to take advantage of ICT to power economic growth and deliver public services efficiently and effectively across the country.

Gracing the occasion, the Director of ICT Operations from the Information and Communication Technologies Commission (ICTC), Engineer Jasson Ndanguzi, apart from thanking Huawei for the efforts, said the training was one of the Commission’s strategies in developing the three-year national development plan.

It was timely that he said the programme was also aimed at registering ICT professionals, as well as developing them by building their capacity to keep up with the development of ICT in the world, where Tanzania is part and parcel.

That also came with the realization that despite the Government striving to improve the ICT infrastructure, it is starting to focus on improving human resources so that the country has enough professionals.

It should be noted such training is also about big data analysis-that is the processing of big data that can help provide accurate information and enable the government to make the right administrative and developmental decisions toward the realization of its goals.

In the case study, since the launching of the training program in April, 2021, a total of 157 participants have benefited from the training and thus increased their skills in a number of areas including in big data processing, ICT management, and cyber security among others.

Commenting, one of the programme trainers from Huawei, Oscar Mashauri said the training would help the officials as many of them were finding it difficult to process big data in their offices because they did not have the technique or expertise to do so.

Speaking on the program, one of the beneficiaries Rweyemamu Barongo, ICT specialist from the Bank of Tanzania (BOT) said the training would take them to a new world, noting: “We are confident it will help us in our workplaces and add new innovations for our benefit and the benefit of the country as a whole… and more I thank Huawei for making this possible.”

For further improvements, Huawei Tanzania has committed to bring the best technology and reliable mobile network to every corner of the country.

“We will also continue investing in the national ICT talent ecosystem, by training at least 1,000 students per year, and providing more top-quality online courses to Tanzanian people. Together, we can bridge the ‘digital gap’’ Mr. Damon Zhang, Huawei Tanzania CEO told the sixth three-day Information and Technology Communication (ICT) International conference in Zanzibar in October, 2022.

The Chinese giant was the main sponsor of the conference graced by the Zanzibar President Dr Hussein Mwinyi and attended by Minister of Information, Communication and Information Technology Nape Nnauye and his Zanzibar counterpart Dr Khalid Salum Mohamed. This prompted President Mwinyi to award Huawei Tanzania a certification of recognition for its further support in the transformation of the ICT sector in the country

According to the CEO the company’s vision is to bring digital to every person, home and organization, for a fully connected, intelligent world.

“It is exactly what we have been focusing on since we came to Tanzania in 2007. We are very proud to be able to participate in the construction of national ICT infrastructure, from 2G to 4G, and from National Data Centre to NICTBB.’’

“We are further determined to cultivate Tanzania ICT talents ecosystem. We have formed formal partnerships with 19 local universities, co-established 4 ICT Practical Labs, and trained more than 3000 teachers and students through Huawei ICT Academy.

“First, ICT technology can upgrade productivity and reduce management cost of traditional industries in the Blue Economy, such as fishing, the oil and gas industry, or the port industry. When easy and replicable works are taken by technology, human resources can be released for safer and more knowledge-based works, after a certain amount of training and practicing.”

“Second, ICT technology can facilitate mass education and promotion of industrial knowledge, no matter it is bringing the latest technology from the world to local people, or maximize the influence that one teacher does in one online class,” he pointed out.

For the country to achieve a strong and robust blue economy, the foundation of national ICT infrastructure must be robust enough to be the backbone of the digital transformation. This is because water bodies—oceans and lakes—are great treasuries of wealth, which Zanzibar is firm to exploit through ICT whose role in creating jobs and building inclusive and sustainable economies is critical.

Citing the current status of the government, Minister Nnauye said many efforts to ensure that the digital economy is achieved include developing the creativity of young people, building the capacity of IT professionals, improving systems in all sectors and ensuring that information is exchanged in full, continuing to build communication infrastructure in the country, encouraging the availability of smart phones at low cost as well as making sure that domestic companies and developers can sell IT products and services outside the borders of the country.

But generally, Huawei Tanzania is committed to ICT knowledge and skills’ transfer to Tanzanians to cultivate a healthy ICT ecosystem in the country and build a digital talent pool needed for sustainable development in partnership with industrial and academic partners.

At the same time, Huawei Tanzania commits itself to increasing connectivity and accelerating digital inclusion across the country for the realization of the Tanzania Development Vision 2025.

Since it entered Tanzania in 2007, Huawei has provided its clients with end-to-end ICT solutions for secure, reliable, resilient and efficient operations of communications networks in the country. In addition, it has introduced advanced digital applications and services to the country and devoted itself to knowledge and skill transfer, to make ICT more available, accessible and affordable to Tanzanians.

Boosting ICT infrastructure

By rolling out networks consisting of data centers, fiber and base stations, Huawei Tanzania works with its partners in connecting Tanzanians from different regions of the country, closing the digital gap and laying solid foundation for sustainable socio-economic development.

This includes upgrading Tanzania’s network from 2G all the way to 4G with operators; Building optical fiber broadband network that connects all 31 regions in Tanzania; Connecting over 2 million people living in rural areas with operators; Introducing Mobile Money services to Tanzania with operators, achieving 27 million subscriptions nationwide and Providing efficient and reliable wireless communications system for SGR in Tanzania.

The list also highlights upskilling over 2000 ICT engineers and civil servants over the past 14 years; Establishing 14 ICT academies with top universities in Tanzania and providing certification programs to 4000 Tanzanian students.

In a related development over 4000 Tanzanian students have registered for Huawei ICT competition since 2018. In 2020, 3 Tanzanian university students emerged as winners of the first prize at Huawei ICT Competition sub-Saharan Africa regional finals and 3 others scooped the second prize at global finals.

Since 2016, around 100 Tanzanian students have benefited from Huawei’s Seeds for the Future program. Besides this and presided over by the Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, the company organized Huawei ICT Academy Tanzania students’ competitions, where a Tanzanian was groomed and won the 2nd Prize at Huawei ICT Competition Global Finals

Creating a dynamic ICT ecosystem

Huawei Tanzania has been working with local business partners, most of which are Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to integrate local businesses into global value chains.

It was noted that locally in the country, Huawei Tanzania works to ensure sustainable development by offering its employees with equal opportunities to work, learn and develop, so that they can grow together with the company and achieve shared success, implying that as a responsible corporate company, Huawei Tanzania keeps giving back to society in various Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs.

Pats on the back

On 13th Jan 2023, the Deputy Chief Executive of Huawei Tanzania, Mr Tao Mian paid a courtesy call to Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation Dr Stergomena Tax in a talk that culminated in the latter hailing the company for their technological advancements and sharing with Tanzanians.

In her speech, she further commended the Huawei Tanzania for investing in Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) in the country, especially through their projects which distribute digital services in rural areas.

The Minister further said, “Huawei is a big company and we appreciate your presence in this country. Information and Communication Technology is one of the priorities of the government led by President Samia Suluhu Hassan.

“So, we will continue to cooperate with you, especially in providing digital services in villages and colleges so that we can finally achieve our dream of becoming a digital hub.”

On his part, Mr Mian expressed great satisfaction in working with the government, vowing to further improve IT communication in rural areas, noting that Huawei Tanzania will take the lead as expected.

Huawei Tanzania, which has invested for more than 15 years in Tanzania, especially in bringing the best technology to enable the digital service to be easily available throughout the country, where so far, the network has spread for more than 15,000 kilometres the whole country.