The innovation voices shaping Tanzania’s journey to 2050

DAR ES SALAAM: FOR five days, the Julius Nyerere International Convention Centre in Dar es Salaam became a meeting point for an idea that Tanzania can no longer afford to treat as a fashionable development slogan: innovation.

Inside the conference halls, exhibition spaces and discussion rooms of Innovation Week Tanzania 2026, government officials, researchers, entrepreneurs, investors, development partners, technology specialists and young innovators wrestled with a deceptively simple question…. How does Tanzania turn its enormous pool of ideas and ambitions into solutions that create jobs, businesses, productivity and a better quality of life for its people?

It was a question that acquired even greater significance because the country is now embarking on the implementation of Tanzania Development Vision 2050, an ambitious blueprint that places economic transformation, innovation, technology, human capital and inclusive prosperity at the centre of the country’s long-term future.

The 2026 edition of Innovation Week, held from August 31 to September 4, carried a telling theme: “From Aspirations to Transformation: Innovating Tanzania’s Path to Inclusive Prosperity.”

And the speakers were clear…. Tanzania’s aspirations will mean little unless they are translated into action. Among the strongest voices was that of Shigeki Komatsubara, UNDP Tanzania Resident Representative, who challenged stakeholders to look beyond ideas and pilot projects and focus on solutions capable of reaching scale.

His warning was particularly significant given Tanzania’s ambition of building a US$1 trillion economy by 2050.

“A trillion-dollar economy is an ambition not to be taken lightly,” he said.

The statement captures the magnitude of the challenge facing Tanzania.

A trillion-dollar economy cannot be built simply by increasing the number of conferences held on innovation.

Nor can it emerge from government policy documents alone. It will require new businesses, new technologies, more productive industries, stronger research institutions, innovative financial products, competitive companies and millions of skilled Tanzanians capable of participating in a rapidly changing global economy.

Komatsubara’s message was therefore essentially a call to move beyond the comfort zone of discussing innovation and into the harder territory of scaling what works.

For Prof Kitila Mkumbo, Minister of State in the President’s Office for Planning and Investment, said innovation is increasingly inseparable from the country’s development ambitions.

The minister was among the keynote speakers at the event, which placed innovation firmly within the broader framework of Tanzania’s long-term economic transformation.

His intervention formed part of a wider message that Tanzania needs to shift its mindset about development. For decades, development conversations have often focused on infrastructure, investment and the expansion of existing industries.

These remain important, but the economy of the future will increasingly reward countries capable of producing knowledge, technology and new business models. That means Tanzania must ask different questions.

Instead of asking only how many graduates it produces, it must ask what those graduates are capable of creating.

Instead of asking only how much research is conducted, it must ask how much of that research reaches farmers, factories, hospitals, businesses and consumers.

And instead of celebrating an innovation simply because it is new, the country must ask whether it solves a real problem and whether it can be reproduced at scale. That is where innovation becomes an economic strategy rather than an academic exercise.

Another powerful voice came from Dr Blandina Kilama, Deputy Executive Secretary responsible for Trade and Innovation at the National Planning Commission.

Her message was particularly relevant to the challenge of turning research into real-world solutions.

Speaking during Innovation Week, Dr Kilama emphasised that evidence-based research and innovation can provide solutions to climate change and support implementation of Dira 2050.

She pointed to challenges already being experienced by communities, including changing rainfall patterns, water shortages and disruptions to agricultural production.

Her argument was straightforward: Tanzanians living with these challenges must not be treated merely as victims of climate change. They can also be creators of solutions.

“Research and innovation are the best way to bring solutions to climate change,” she said in her remarks. But she also identified the missing ingredients.

An innovation with genuine potential must be connected to finance, expertise, technology, markets and partnerships if it is to grow and deliver meaningful results.

The role of the FUNGUO Innovation Programme featured prominently in the wider Innovation Week conversation. FUNGUO was established to help youth-led, impact-driven start-ups and innovative MSMEs grow into scalable, investment ready enterprises.

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Its approach addresses what it describes as the “missing middle” of the startup ecosystem, ventures that have demonstrated promise but struggle to access appropriate capital, support services and enabling policies. That challenge is familiar to entrepreneurs across Tanzania.

“A young Tanzanian may have a brilliant business idea and even attract initial customers, but scaling from a small operation into a company capable of employing hundreds of people requires capital, management expertise, technology, market access and networks,” said Funguo Programme Manager, Joseph Manirakiza.

He said that is why the fifth cohort of the programme and the wider conversations around investors, start-ups and portfolio companies were significant, saying the country needs more than entrepreneurs, it needs scalable entrepreneurs.

It needs companies that can grow beyond their original market, create decent jobs, attract investment and compete regionally and globally.

Perhaps the most compelling argument for investing in innovation is demographic. By 2050, a large share of Tanzania’s population will be young.

FUNGUO itself has highlighted the reality that two out of every three Tanzanians could be youth by 2050.

That makes today’s investment in young people’s skills and creativity an investment in the Tanzania of tomorrow. Young people must therefore be equipped not only to look for jobs but to create businesses, technologies and solutions.

They need opportunities in artificial intelligence, data science, big-data analytics, agriculture, fisheries, entrepreneurship and other emerging fields. And this requires a major shift in the way skills development is approached.