Tanzania has adopted the National Digital Economy Framework that will ensure all sectors of the economy are leveraging ICTs, while facilitating digital transformation that creates an inclusive digital society for sustainable development.
This was said by the Minister for Information, Communication and Information Technology, Mr Nape Nnauye, when addressing the International Telecommunication Union Plenipotentiary Conference 2022, which is being held here in Bucharest, Romania.
He said Tanzania has a National ICT Policy, which led to an unprecedented increase of ICT applications in various sectors of the economy.
Tanzania has equally embraced and enabled financial inclusion, which has linked the ever-unbanked population of the country, especially the rural community with banking services and the minister attributed the success to the private sector participation.
“Since we introduced a converged Licensing Framework in 2005 to leverage ICT in our effort to uplift the social and economic well-being of our people, we have registered success. Thanks to the public-private partnership strategies. Tanzania has achieved greatly in terms of financial inclusion. Today, there are more than 35.75 million users of mobile money compared to 23.34 million users in 2018,” said Mr Nape.
He said the government has invested thousands of kilometres of fibre optic cables that contribute to the National ICT Broadband Backbone Network (NICTBB).
Minister Nape said that regional and landlinked countries connectivity initiatives are commitments that Tanzania has been paying a great attention to.
The NICTBB network connects the land-linked countries through multiple connections to the border points of Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Zambia, and Malawi. The national ICT broadband Backbone has a length of 18,000km.
“To secure the communication networks, information systems and their availability, Tanzania has established its National Computer Security Emergency Response Team (TZ-CERT) to coordinate response to cyber incidents at national level,” explained Mr Nape. He further said Tanzania is in its final stage to enact a Data Protection Law.
In ensuring universality, connecting unserved and underserved areas, Tanzania has established a Universal Services Communications Access Fund (USCAF). To date the Fund has managed to connect 316 villages with a population of 730,000.
“The government set a remarkable goal of ensuring Broadband access and services coverage of 80 per cent nationwide by the end of 2024,” said Nape.
He further said extension of telecommunication coverage to every part of the country to provide rural communities with access to mobile phones is underway. The Fund has also embarked on other projects including connecting schools, tele-medicines centres and more.
Speaking on Tanzania candidature to ITU council for 2023-2026, Minister Nape said Tanzania’s experience in the communications sector can best fit and be shared with the ITU family as a member of the ITU Council especially at this juncture when the sector is changing very fast, and the international community is more than ever ready and utilising the information and communications technologies products and services as tools for social and economic development.
“I wish to reiterate that Tanzania is committed to co-operate and share with other Member States, the ITU Secretariat and the regional offices to make ITU an eminent international body that plays an important role in enhancing socio-economic development of all member countries” further explained Nape.
Tanzania has put its candidature to the seat of the ITU Council representing Region D.
“We are requesting all ITU members to vote for Tanzania to the ITU Council, so that it can share experiences with the ITU family and further contribute to ITU Vision and Mission,” he said.
Minister Nape said that Tanzania is working very closely with ITU to close the digital divide in the use of telecommunication and ICTs in all Tanzania citizens and to place more emphasis on women and girls, youths, older persons, and persons with disabilities.
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Quelle/Source: Daily News, 01.10.2022
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