Category: The Citizen

The long-held dreams of Songosongo island residents in Kilwa District, Lindi Region, to secure reliable transport will finally materialise following the commencement of a modern ferry construction project designed to provide safe travel and boost the local economy.

The Sh5.7 billion ferry, fully funded by the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, is being constructed by the contractor Qiro Group Ltd.

Speaking on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, during the project’s official launch at the Malindi port slipway in the Urban West Region of Unguja, Lindi Regional Commissioner Zainab Telack said the ferry would bring immense relief to the islanders who have long endured severe transport hurdles.

She noted that despite the island’s critical importance to the national economy, driven by its natural gas reserves and luxury tourist hotels, transportation has remained perilously unreliable, with residents sometimes getting lost at sea while using makeshift vessels.

“This island is vital to our economy; it produces substantial natural gas and serves as a premium tourism destination boasting large hotels. Until now, our tourists have strictly relied on air travel,” Ms Telack stated.

“We are now confident that this modern ferry will offer tourists an alternative, safe route to explore our country. Tourism drives our economy. Therefore, alongside providing safe transit for Songosongo residents, we are unlocking the doors to accessible tourism on these islands, which will ultimately boost the economy for both the citizens and the nation at large,” said the regional commissioner.

Songosongo Ward councillor Hassan Mbai said the island’s 5,600 residents feel as though they have been reborn, noting that since independence in 1961, they have relied on highly unreliable and dangerous maritime transport.

“To tell the truth, if we were not in paradise, then we must be near its gates. God has miraculously protected us all these years, even though our local ferries were incredibly unsafe,” Mr Mbai reflected.

He added that the dire transport situation forced government experts and institutional officials to execute local projects remotely via phone calls, as reaching the island was considered too hazardous.

“On behalf of the residents of Songosongo and Kilwa, we are overjoyed today. We firmly believe our travel safety will drastically improve once this modern vessel is completed,” he said.

For his part, acting TPDC executive director, Mr Francis Mwakapalila noted that the corporation deeply recognises the immense economic and strategic contributions of Songosongo island through its continuous natural gas production.

“Consequently, this investment forms a core part of our CSR strategy to uplift the welfare and living standards of the communities surrounding our project areas,” said Mr Mwakapalila.

He revealed that TPDC allocated Sh5.76 billion for the project, with 100 percent of the funding derived from the corporation’s effective internal revenue management, ensuring that national energy resources directly benefit the citizens.

Furthermore, the Director of Ferries at the Tanzania Electrical and Mechanical Services Agency (Temesa), Mr Lukombe King’ombe, noted that alongside the Songosongo project, the agency is managing the construction of six other similar vessels to serve various regions across Mainland Tanzania.

“We are currently constructing a new ferry for the Mafia-Nyamisati route, which will serve as the second operational vessel there. Additionally, we are building five other ferries designated to serve communities across Lake Victoria,” explained Mr King’ombe.

A consulting engineer from the Dar es Salaam Maritime Institute (DMI), Mr Lazaro Isaac, detailed that the new ferry will measure 28.8 metres in length and 8 metres in width.

It will boast the capacity to carry 54 seated passengers, two small vehicles, and an estimated 10 tonnes of general cargo.

He noted that the eight-month project commenced following an advance payment of Sh1.5 billion on June 16, 2024.

Execution has currently reached 31 percent, and the contractor is expected to complete the vessel by February 2027, as per the contract.

Wrapping up the launch, Qiro Group Ltd managing director, Mr Yang Hao, popularly known locally as ‘Makame Mchina’, assured stakeholders that his company is fully committed to delivering the ferry on schedule while strictly adhering to all stipulated quality and safety requirements.

Nigeria plans to take on a bigger role in coordinating humanitarian responses inside the country, as it shifts away from a system led largely by international donors and UN agencies, officials said on Tuesday.

The move was outlined at a joint transition workshop in the capital of Abuja, where the Nigerian government and the United Nations began talks on transferring greater responsibility for planning, coordination, and financing ?of operations to national institutions.

Nigeria’s humanitarian minister Bernard Doro said the move was not a withdrawal of international support but a transition to government-led coordination that would continue to receive technical backing from the UN and other partners.

UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Mohamed Fall said the decision was not about reducing support, but to shift to a new model that takes advantage of more government and ?private-sector funding to drive humanitarian response.

Donor funding has been under growing pressure globally, while Nigeria wants to strengthen its ability to respond to conflict, displacement, food insecurity, flooding, climate shocks and public health emergencies.

The UN ?has said nearly 35 million Nigerians are at risk of hunger this year following the collapse of global aid budgets.

Doro said his ministry would work with ?federal and state authorities, aid agencies and affected communities to coordinate humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery efforts nationwide.

He said Nigeria aims ?to take the lead in developing its 2027 humanitarian plan, with technical support from OCHA and the wider UN system.

Whenever the price of coffee falls, farmers expect government to intervene. When fuel prices rise, motorists demand action. When bus fares increase, passengers look to regulators for protection.

More recently, butchers in Bukoba reportedly appealed to government to support higher meat prices after a local rancher began selling beef more cheaply than they were charging.

These examples have one thing in common. They all reflect a deeply rooted belief that government should determine prices whenever markets produce uncomfortable outcomes.

That expectation is understandable. It is a legacy of Tanzania’s economic history.

For nearly two decades after the Arusha Declaration of 1967, government occupied the commanding heights of the economy.

It owned major industries, controlled agricultural marketing, regulated trade and fixed many producer and consumer prices.

Citizens naturally came to view the state not merely as a regulator but as the principal economic actor responsible for determining what producers would receive and what consumers would pay.

The economic reforms introduced from the mid-1980s marked a fundamental turning point.

They followed a period of intense national debate over structural adjustment programmes promoted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was among their strongest critics, warning that externally-driven reforms could impose heavy social costs and reduce national policy autonomy.

Nevertheless, under the new administration, Tanzania gradually embraced market liberalisation, private enterprise and competition as the principal means of allocating resources.

The reforms changed not only economic policy but also the relationship between government and the market.

Yet, almost 40 years later, one important question remains unresolved: What exactly is the role of government in a liberalised economy?

Many of today’s policy debates suggest that while our institutions have changed, our expectations have not. Whenever producer prices fall, farmers ask government to raise them. Whenever consumer prices rise, the public expects government to reduce them.

Whenever competition creates winners and losers, businesses often seek official intervention to protect their commercial interests.

The greatest misunderstanding about liberalisation is that it reduced the role of government. It did not. It changed the role of government-from setting prices to ensuring that markets function fairly, competitively and in the public interest.

This distinction is important because a liberal economy does not mean an economy without government. Nor does it mean that markets should always be left entirely alone. Equally, it does not justify government fixing prices whenever markets become politically uncomfortable.

Before intervening in any market, policymakers should ask three simple questions.

First, is the market failing? Markets sometimes fail because of monopolies, cartels, collusion or inadequate competition. In such circumstances, government has a legitimate responsibility to act.

But not every price increase or decrease represents market failure. International commodity prices, weather conditions and changes in supply and demand also influence prices.

Second, who ultimately bears the cost? Government may announce higher producer prices or lower consumer prices, but if those prices do not reflect the true cost of production, someone must absorb the difference.

If transport fares are held below operating costs, services eventually deteriorate.

If producer prices are fixed above market realities, marketing institutions incur losses. Economic policy cannot eliminate costs; it merely determines who pays them.

Third, will intervention strengthen or weaken the market? Good policy encourages investment, productivity and competition. Poor policy often weakens incentives, discourages efficiency and reduces innovation.

The objective should not simply be to change prices but to improve the way markets function.

Governments possess many instruments besides fixing prices. They can invest in infrastructure, improve storage facilities, strengthen market information systems, reduce unnecessary taxes and levies, promote competition, enforce consumer protection laws and regulate monopolies. In many cases, these measures produce more sustainable results than administrative price controls.

It is also important to distinguish between price determination and price regulation. Competitive markets determine prices through transactions between buyers and sellers.

Regulators, on the other hand, oversee markets where competition is naturally limited or where consumers require protection. The two functions are complementary, not contradictory.

The remaining articles in this series will examine how these principles apply to Tanzania’s producer prices and consumer prices.

The next article asks whether, after four decades of liberalisation, agricultural marketing has fully embraced competition. We shall examine producer prices, AMCOS, the Warehouse Receipt System (Stakabadhi Ghalani), indicative prices and the continuing restrictions on farm-gate buying.

The discussion is not about returning to the past or abandoning liberalisation. It is about ensuring that government intervention strengthens markets rather than substitutes for them as we implement Vision 2050.

After four decades of experience, Tanzania’s challenge is no longer choosing between state control and free markets. It is defining the proper role of government in building competitive, efficient and fair markets that serve both producers and consumers.

Tanzania’s higher education sector is approaching a critical financing crossroads, The Citizen has learnt.

As universities expand, student enrolment continues to rise and the country’s ambitions under Vision 2050 increasingly depend on a highly skilled workforce, the pressure on public financing has become more visible than ever.

Kenya’s Parliament made a decision that should be studied across East Africa. By a vote of 122 to 40, the National Assembly rejected a proposal in the Finance Bill 2026 to introduce a 16 per cent VAT on peer-to-peer mobile money transfers, explicitly citing the risk to financial inclusion.

The bill, which would have subjected M-Pesa and Airtel Money fees to VAT for the first time, drew opposition from the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA), professional bodies like the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK), and payment service providers including Safaricom, and Airtel Kenya, who warned it would drive users back to cash, what the KBA’s CEO called”mattress banking.” Kenya reviewed the evidence and chose not to run the experiment. Tanzania is still running it.

What is important here is not simply that Kenya protected a popular service from an unpopular tax. The lesson for Tanzania is that Kenya made a calculated economic judgement: that mobile money is more valuable to the government as infrastructure for formalisation and inclusion, than as a direct revenue line with diminishing fiscal returns.

That distinction is enormously significant for Tanzania, and with the Finance Bill 2026 being passed, the conversation turns to what reforms can be built into the 2027/28 budget cycle.

Kenya’s decision was grounded in two decades of evidence. Mobile money penetration has reached 157.7 per cent, with over 84.1 million active subscriptions. Formal financial access, which stood at just26.7 per cent of adults in 2006 before M-Pesa launched, now sits at84.8 per cent.

According to research from MIT and Georgetown University, M-Pesa alone lifted an estimated 194,000 Kenyan households out of extreme poverty. That trajectory was built on a tax framework that treated mobile money as infrastructure to be protected.

The Kenyan parliament reaffirmed that approach, and the expected outcome follows a pattern seen every time a comparable market has made the same choice.

One of the most documented of those is Ghana. In 2022, Ghana introduced a 1.5 per cent e-levy on electronic transactions. The results were immediate, as transaction values and revenues fell by up to 38 per cent year-on-year, whilst cash withdrawals surged by 61 per cent as users routed around the levy.

Ghana abolished it entirely in early 2025 and the response was equally as swift. In the first two months of 2025 alone, Ghana recorded GHC 649.2 billion in mobile money transactions; a64.68 per cent year-on-year increase, according to Bank of Ghana data.

By March 2026, GSMA named Ghana the highest-improving country in Africa on its Digital Africa Index, directly attributing the gains to the levy’s removal.

Tanzania has already run a version of this experiment, and the results were equally clear. When the government introduced a mobile money levy in July 2021, layered on top of an existing 18 per cent VAT and 10 per cent excise duty on mobile money transaction fees, peer-to-peer transactions fell 38 per cent within three months.

The levy was eventually abolished, but the underlying VAT and excise duty structure was never reformed. According to PwC Tanzania, the effective tax rate on telecom services, accounting for all levies, stands at 46.61 per cent per unit of consumer spend.

This is the central tension in Tanzania’s 2026/27 fiscal strategy. The Finance Minister’s June budget speech mandated digital payments across mass transport, retail, education fees, land transfers, and strategic crops, using Tanzania’s Instant Payment System, which processed 651 million transactions worth TZS 54.95 trillion in 2025, to pull the informal economy into the tax net. It is the right strategy.

Tanzania’s informal sector accounts for an estimated 44.9 per cent of GDP, and only 5 to 7 per cent of those transactions are currently captured in the tax system. The formalisation prize is enormous, but it can only be viable if participation in the digital economy is deemed affordable enough to be universal, which is precisely what Kenya has just chosen to protect.

The fiscal pressures driving Tanzania’s current approach indeed deserve acknowledgement. However, the evidence from every comparable market shows the same thing: the tax collected directly from introducing friction around mobile money is smaller than the tax forfeited when those transactions shift back to cash. Uganda learned this in July 2018, when the government introduced a 1 per cent tax on mobile money transaction values.

A UNCDF survey conducted just two weeks later found that 47 per cent of users had stopped using mobile money completely, whilst some merchant payment segments saw transaction volumes fall by up to 60 per cent.

The government was forced to reduce the tax to 0.5 per cent within months. A Tanzanian market trader paying through mobile money generates a VAT trail, income visibility, and a credit history. The same trader paying cash generates little to nothing.

What Kenya’s decision teaches Tanzania is this: protecting mobile money from punitive taxation is a revenue strategy, and should not be seen as a concession to the private sector. Three practical steps remain available before Tanzania’s Finance Bill is enacted. Removing VAT from mobile money transaction fees would align with Tanzania’s long-term digital economy ambitions.

A published, multi-year schedule for reducing excise duty would give operators the certainty needed to invest in rural network expansion. Finally, the budget introduces a new requirement that compels some operators in extractive and agricultural industries to maintain a formal financial account as a condition of doing business.

The problem is that the provision specifies only a bank account; it says nothing about mobile money. In rural Tanzania, where bank branch penetration remains low and mobile money is the primary financial tool for millions of smallholder farmers, livestock traders, and fishing communities, this is a significant barrier.

Kenya chose the longer revenue arc over the shorter one. With the Finance Bill 2026 about to become law, the 2027/28 budget cycle is Tanzania’s next opportunity to make a choice that supports it digital economy agenda.

The British Council is set to close its office in Tanzania as part of a major global restructuring driven by financial pressures, marking a significant reduction in the United Kingdom’s cultural and educational presence overseas.

Three African countries Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania are among the seven nations confirmed to lose British Council offices.

Your manager asks you to pull together a report, sit in on a client call or cover something that technically falls outside your role. You agree. Maybe the team is short-staffed. Maybe it genuinely feels like a one-off. Maybe you simply want to be helpful.

Then it happens again.

A few months later, the extra task has quietly become part of your job. Then another responsibility is added. Then another. Your workload has grown, but your title and salary have stayed exactly where they were.

When we asked our community at what point ‘helping out’ becomes unpaid labour, the responses revealed just how complicated this conversation is. Because while it is easy to say employees should simply set boundaries, the reality of the workplace, especially in a difficult job market, makes that much harder.

Reading Between The Lines

One of the biggest frustrations raised in the comments was the infamous phrase found in so many employment contracts: ‘any other duties assigned by management.’

One reader wrote:

‘They keep adding responsibilities while your title and salary stay exactly the same. Then, when you finally speak up, they conveniently point to the ‘any other duties assigned by management’ clause. That clause has become a loophole to normalize unpaid labor.’

Most people understand that a job will occasionally require flexibility. There will be busy periods, unexpected problems and moments when everyone has to do a little more than usual.

The frustration begins when ‘occasionally’ becomes every day.

If responsibilities continue to increase without any conversation about your role, workload or compensation, employees naturally begin to question where flexibility ends and exploitation begins. A single line in a contract can become an easy answer to almost any concern about workload.

The Reality of a Difficult Job Market

Of course, setting boundaries at work is much easier to discuss than it is to actually do.

One commenter put it plainly:

‘When you are an employee you just have to say yes… Just work, earn your salary. Kuna wengi wako jobless [there are many who are jobless] that’ll do your job for less.’

That fear is real.

When jobs are difficult to find, saying no to your manager can feel like job suicide. You know there may be someone else willing to accept the same position, for less money. For interns and people at the beginning of their careers, the pressure can be even greater. Many already accept poorly paid or unpaid opportunities simply because they need experience.

So people keep saying yes.

They take on the extra assignment. They stay late. They cover work that belongs to another role. Sometimes this continues for months because having an unfair job still feels safer than having no job at all.

That is the part of the conversation that cannot be ignored. People do not always stay silent because they lack boundaries. Sometimes they are making decisions based on the reality of what they can afford to risk.

When Extra Work Can Work in Your Favour

Another perspective from the comments was more strategic.

One reader wrote:

‘If it benefits you in terms of adding new skills and challenges, exposes you for the better, take it and keep addressing it to your supervisor while you plan your next move with your value-added set of skills…’

And there’s some truth to this.

Not every responsibility outside your job description is automatically a bad thing. Sometimes an extra project gives you experience you would otherwise have had to wait years to get. It can expose you to new people, new skills and better opportunities.

The important question is whether the extra work is actually taking you somewhere.

If you are learning, gaining useful experience and building skills that can strengthen your next salary negotiation or your next job application, there may be value in taking it on for a period of time.

But if you have been doing the work of two positions for a year, your workload keeps increasing and every conversation about recognition is pushed aside, then you may need to ask who is really benefiting from your flexibility.

What Can You Actually Do?

If you are already dealing with responsibilities that have slowly expanded beyond your original role, you do not necessarily have to begin with a confrontation.

Keep track of what you are doing. Write down the responsibilities you have taken on, the projects you have contributed to and any results that came from that work. When the time comes to discuss your role or salary, you have something concrete to point to.

Ask about priorities. When another task is added to an already full workload, you can say: ‘I’m currently working on A and B. Which one would you like me to deprioritise so I can make room for this?’

It is a simple question, but it makes your workload visible. You are still being cooperative while making it clear that your time has limits.

Put a timeline on temporary responsibilities. If you are covering for someone or taking on additional work because the team is short-staffed, ask when the arrangement will be reviewed. A temporary responsibility can very easily become permanent when nobody returns to the conversation.

You could say: ‘I’m happy to cover this for now. Can we review the arrangement in two months and discuss what it means for my role if these responsibilities continue?’

That conversation may feel uncomfortable, but it gives both sides clarity.

The Bottom Line

Workplaces need flexibility. There will always be moments when people have to step outside the exact wording of their job description and help where they can.

The problem comes when your willingness to help becomes the reason you are continuously given more work without any recognition of how much your role has changed.

Extra responsibilities can help you grow. They can also become a very convenient way for an organisation to get more work without hiring another person or paying you more.

The difference often becomes clearer when you ask a simple question: Where is this extra work taking me?

If it is giving you useful skills, greater responsibility and a genuine path forward, it may be worth doing strategically. If the work keeps growing while every conversation about your own growth goes nowhere, that tells you something too.

At some point, ‘helping out’ stops being a favour and simply becomes part of your job.

And if it has become part of your job, it is reasonable to ask whether your title and salary should reflect that.

Disclaimer: This column is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute clinical advice. While exploring these psychological concepts can provide helpful insight, it is not a replacement for professional therapy.

If you are struggling with deep family conflict, burnout, or mental health challenges and want to dive deeper, please consider reaching out to a licensed therapist or mental health professional for personalized guidance.

Haika Gerson is a mental health advocate with a background in psychology and a focus on modern relational wellness.

Imported dairy products are gradually losing their dominance on supermarket shelves in Tanzania as local processors expand production, supported by government policy reforms and investment in modern processing technology.

The shift has created new opportunities for dairy farmers and processors. Official figures show milk production has increased by 40 percent over the past six years, although the industry continues to face low productivity, unreliable markets and inadequate milk collection systems.

Tanzania has presented its Third Voluntary National Review (VNR) on the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), highlighting progress made across key development sectors and reaffirming its commitment to achieving the 2030 Agenda.

The Minister of State in the President’s Office for Planning and Investment, Professor Kitila Mkumbo, presented the report during the ongoing United Nations High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development at the UN Headquarters in New York.

Professor Mkumbo outlined achievements recorded through government-led initiatives, including an increase in access to clean water in rural areas from 72.3 percent in 2020 to 85.3 percent in 2025. He said electricity access has also expanded significantly, with 86.2 percent of Tanzanians now connected to the national grid, while the country’s power generation capacity has more than doubled.

The report also highlights progress under SDG 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure, with the number of rail passengers rising from 1.2 million to 4.1 million as transport infrastructure continues to improve.

Speaking on SDG 17, which focuses on partnerships for sustainable development, Professor Mkumbo said implementation of the goals has been driven by strong collaboration between the government, the private sector, civil society organisations and development partners.

More than 824 civil society organisations and 1,000 private sector institutions participated in the preparation of the report, he said.

Professor Mkumbo also outlined seven priority areas that will accelerate the implementation of the SDGs through Tanzania’s National Development Vision 2050 and the Fourth Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP IV).

He said the report demonstrates Tanzania’s development progress while reaffirming the country’s commitment to accelerating implementation of the 2030 Agenda during the four years remaining before the global deadline.

Tanzania’s healthcare system risks being overwhelmed by future challenges unless the country invests in a new generation of health professionals equipped with digital skills, artificial intelligence (AI) expertise and strong leadership capabilities, experts have warned.

Speaking at the opening of the 4th Human Resources for Health Conference yesterday, health leaders said Tanzania must shift from a treatment-focused approach to one that prioritises disease prevention while preparing young professionals to lead a rapidly changing health sector.

Muhimbili Orthopedic Institute (MOI) Executive Director Dr Mpoki Ulisubisya said the country’s health strategy must place greater emphasis on prevention.

‘I don’t know of any country in the world where curative health services alone have solved the majority of a population’s health challenges,’ he said.

‘If we invest effectively in preventive healthcare, fewer people will fall sick, especially from preventable diseases. Prevention is one solution we cannot afford to ignore.’

Dr Ulisubisya urged policymakers to adopt long-term health planning rather than focusing only on immediate challenges.

‘We need to stop looking only at what is available today. We must project ourselves into the future and prepare for the healthcare needs that are coming,’ he said.

He identified artificial intelligence as one of the biggest opportunities for transforming healthcare, saying the technology could improve diagnosis, medical research and clinical decision-making.

‘In the past, a doctor would spend hours searching medical libraries to understand a disease they had never encountered before. Today, artificial intelligence allows health professionals to access that knowledge almost instantly,’ he said.

However, he cautioned that AI should support rather than replace healthcare workers.

‘Artificial intelligence cannot replace the human mind because it has no compassion. It cannot understand inequalities or appreciate the social realities affecting patients. Technology should strengthen healthcare workers, not replace them,’ he said.

Dr Ulisubisya also stressed the need for equal healthcare standards across the country, saying people in rural areas deserve the same quality of services as those in Dar es Salaam.

‘The benchmarks for healthcare services in rural areas should be the same as those in Dar es Salaam because we are treating the same human beings,’ he said.

He also highlighted the growing gap between the number of health graduates and available employment opportunities.

‘The belief that every graduate should be employed by the government is no longer realistic,’ he said.

‘With a population approaching 70 million, no government can employ everyone. Young professionals must also be prepared to create opportunities through innovation and entrepreneurship.’

He said some professionals pursue higher qualifications mainly to secure administrative positions rather than improve patient care.

‘We need to reward excellence in service delivery just as much as we reward academic advancement,’ he said.

Dr Ulisubisya called for stronger mentorship programmes, urging senior professionals to prepare young workers for leadership.

‘Senior leaders must be willing to mentor young professionals and prepare them to take over leadership positions. They should not see them as threats,’ he said.

Benjamin Mkapa Foundation Chief Executive Officer Dr Ellen Mkondya-Senkoro said the conference was focused on preparing the health workforce Tanzania will need in the coming decades.

‘We are asking ourselves a simple question: what kind of health workforce will Tanzania need by 2050?’ she said.

She said demographic changes, technological advances and shifting disease patterns require new skills beyond traditional medical training.

‘We may not necessarily need more specialists in the traditional sense alone. We will also need professionals with expertise in artificial intelligence, digital health, data science, telemedicine and elderly care,’ she said.

Dr Senkoro said Tanzania produces more than 25,000 health professionals annually across more than 20 health fields, but government employment opportunities remain limited.

‘The government cannot employ every graduate. We must therefore create alternative career pathways through innovation, entrepreneurship and the private sector,’ she said.

She encouraged young professionals to develop digital health solutions that address practical challenges, including appointment systems and telemedicine services.

She said financial support is needed to help young innovators turn ideas into sustainable businesses.

‘Our young people are developing remarkable innovations, but many struggle to secure financing and business support. We need to create an environment where those ideas can grow and benefit the entire country,’ she said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Representative in Tanzania, Dr Alex Gasasira, said Africa has made progress in strengthening its health workforce but still requires solutions based on local realities.

‘Our health systems depend on a strong health workforce. We have made good progress, but there are still areas where innovation is needed,’ he said.

He urged governments and institutions to ensure young professionals participate in shaping future health policies.

The Executive Director of the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community, Dr Mtuli Kaforogwe, said countries in the region continue to face major shortages of health workers.

He said member states have an average workforce shortage of about 46 percent and are sharing approaches to improve recruitment, deployment and retention.

‘We are here to learn from Tanzania’s experience, particularly the work done by the Benjamin William Mkapa Foundation in supporting healthcare workers in underserved communities,’ he said.