By Hellen Ndani
Africa’s most consequential competition is no longer for trade routes or natural resources. It is for digital infrastructure, data centres, payment systems, fibre backbones, and regulatory frameworks that will determine which nations generate and retain digital value, and which nations merely consume it on terms set by others.
This is the new economic frontier.
In July 2025, Tanzania officially launched Dira 2050, a national development vision anchored in a one-trillion-dollar economy by mid-century, with full implementation beginning July 2026.
Every sector of that vision depends on digital infrastructure as its primary enabler. The question is not whether Tanzania will digitise. That is already happening. The important question here is whether we will own what we build, govern what we create, and ensure that the value flows to Tanzanians first.
The foundation is stronger than most people realise Tanzania’s digital story deserves to be told with confidence. The National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) now forms the physical spine of the digital economy, with nearly 8,000 kilometres of government‑owned fibre connecting all regions and linking Tanzania to neighbouring countries, and now being extended to the DRC via a 186 kilometre submarine fibre cable under Lake Tanganyika, positioning Tanzania as the digital gateway for Central and East Africa.
The infrastructure achievement Africa should study Among Tanzania’s recent achievements, none better signals its leadership potential than TIPS, the Tanzania Instant Payment System. Built and operated by the Bank of Tanzania, TIPS processed 453.7 million transactions worth TSh 29.9 trillion in 2024, linking 45 banks, mobile operators, and fintechs on a single real-time platform. Conceived and run locally, it stands apart from Africa’s typically imported payment infrastructure.
The demographic advantage: More than 60 percent of Tanzania’s population is under 25. This is often described as a demographic dividend, but it pays out only if young people can be absorbed into productive work. Tanzania adds hundreds of thousands of youth to its labour market each year, far more than the formal sector can absorb through traditional jobs alone.
Digital entrepreneurship is therefore becoming the primary pathway for a generation, yet it requires infrastructure, capital, and advanced skills that do not yet exist at the needed scale.
Dira 2050 rightly prioritises advanced technology skills such as AI, 5G, and cybersecurity, with ambitions to train large numbers of young Tanzanians this decade.
That ambition is sound, but without sustainable financing it remains aspirational. The skills gap is financial as much as it is educational. Solving it places Tanzania’s financial sector not at the margins of the challenge, but at its centre.
What it means to finance the digital stack
Over the past decade, we have committed hundreds of millions of dollars to financing Tanzania’s digital and connectivity infrastructure. That includes structuring and distributing debt capital, supporting acquisitions and expansion, mobilising long‑term funding through syndications and bond‑style instruments, and bringing investors alongside projects that require scale capital.
We have financed core network infrastructure and capital expenditure that underpins mobile connectivity, interoperable payments, and the digital economy, and we are now supporting investment into local data‑processing and hosting capacity as Tanzania’s data‑sovereignty agenda advances.
We see ourselves not only as bankers, but as partners in designing Tanzania’s digital future, convening policy and capital, aligning public objectives with private execution, and committing both ideas and resources to what the country needs to build next.
Beyond financing; the role of convening: The projects Dira 2050 demands last-mile fibre, rural connectivity, Smart City infrastructure, the data centres Tanzania’s sovereignty framework requires, will not be delivered on capital alone.
They need someone/entities who can translate between a government’s development priorities and an international investor’s risk requirements, understanding both sides of the table, has credibility on both sides, and can convene the right partners at the right moment.
This convening role, sitting between public ambition and private execution is where Stanbic Bank has the greatest opportunity to contribute beyond the transaction. In energy, we built capacity-building programmes that helped investors understand Tanzania’s landscape well enough to commit.
We have sat in rooms before the lawyers were instructed and before the numbers were final, helping shape what becomes commercially viable and politically possible.
The choice in front of us by 2030
The continental window is open. Tanzania has the vision, the infrastructure foundation, the payment systems, the data sovereignty framework, and a young population hungry for the opportunities that digital tools create.
It has a geographic position that makes it a natural anchor for a landlocked regional economy stretching across East and Central Africa. And it has financial institutions with the track record, the relationships, and the sector depth to turn vision into funded, executed, lasting infrastructure.
Hellen Ndani is Senior Vice President, Telecoms Media Technology, CIB Stanbic Bank Tanzania. She writes in her personal capacity.
