Tanzania has increased the share of highly skilled workers from just 3.0% in 2011 to 3.2% in 2026, despite 25 years of development planning.
President Samia Suluhu Hassan has launched the implementation of the National Development Vision 2050, which succeeds Vision 2025 from July 1, 2026.
The World Bank is supporting Tanzania’s new skills agenda with a $300 million employment and productive skills programme covering 2026-2036.
Last week in Dodoma, President Samia Suluhu Hassan officially launched the operational phase of the National Development Vision 2050 (Dira 2050). The new strategic framework will take effect on July 1, 2026, replacing Vision 2025, which guided the country’s development over the past 25 years.
Vision 2025 sought to transform Tanzania into a middle-income economy with a skilled and competitive workforce. However, official data show that the country has made only limited progress toward that objective.
Tanzania has recorded only modest gains in workforce qualifications. When the First Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP I) began in 2011, only 3% of the country’s workforce qualified as highly skilled, while 84% fell into the low-skilled category.
Fifteen years later, the share of highly skilled workers has increased only marginally to 3.2% in 2026, according to Joel Nanauka, Minister of State for Youth Development. By comparison, middle-income economies average 12% highly skilled workers, highlighting the scale of Tanzania’s skills deficit.
In 2011, the labor market faced intense pressure as nearly 700,000 young people entered the workforce each year. The public sector created only 40,000 to 50,000 jobs annually, while the overall unemployment rate reached 14.9%.
Young people aged 15 to 35 accounted for nearly 60% of the unemployed. Meanwhile, seasonal agriculture intensified rural underemployment by leaving thousands of young workers without productive activity during dry seasons. Consequently, the government implemented several policy initiatives over the following 15 years.
Significant Investment, Limited Results
The FYDP I (2011-2016) strengthened vocational education and revived the National Service programme. Subsequently, the FYDP II aligned curricula more closely with labor market needs by targeting high-growth sectors such as oil, mining, information and communication technology, and agribusiness.
The government also developed a National Skills Development Strategy that aligned training with labor market demand and strengthened labor market information systems. Later, the FYDP III emphasized start-ups, digital skills and work-based learning.
These initiatives produced measurable outcomes. Each year, about 42,407 young people received practical skills training, while 28,390 received entrepreneurship support.
Moreover, Tanzania built 25 district vocational training centers and rehabilitated 54 Folk Development Colleges. The country now has more than 540 technical institutions registered with the National Council for Technical Education, as well as 603 vocational training institutions, including 28 managed by the Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA).
Between 2016 and 2019, major infrastructure projects created nearly 1.17 million jobs, according to the government. The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) accounted for a large share of those jobs, while road construction projects also contributed significantly.
In addition, the government built 487 health centers and completed 1,143 water supply projects during the same period. Although these investments modernized the national economy, they failed to significantly raise workforce skill levels because most of the new jobs required low or medium skill levels.
Labor Market Transformation Remains Elusive
The unemployment rate among people aged 15 to 35 stood at 12.2% in 2026, with women facing the greatest challenges, according to Minister Nanauka’s 2026/27 budget presentation. Meanwhile, the World Bank estimated in 2024 that 12.8% of Tanzanians aged 15 to 24 were neither employed nor enrolled in education or training. The bank identified this group as a warning sign. The shortage of highly skilled workers remains the country’s main structural challenge. Over the past 25 years, the proportion of highly skilled workers has increased by only 0.2 percentage points.
To address these imbalances, the government established a Presidential Office for Youth Development in 2026. Furthermore, the authorities mobilized 200 billion Tanzanian shillings (more than $76 million) in February to finance youth economic empowerment through low-interest loans.
The government said agricultural projects under the scheme would benefit from a grace period of up to eight months. In addition, the Building a Better Tomorrow (BBT) programme aims to develop a new generation of commercial farmers by guaranteeing access to land, agricultural inputs and markets.
The launch of Dira 2050 coincides with the implementation of a new World Bank-financed programme in Tanzania. The Employment and Productive Skills for Jobs II (ESPJ-II) programme will mobilize $300 million and will support the implementation of the National Skills Strategy II for the 2026-2036 period. However, the programme’s success will depend less on the number of jobs created than on the quality of those jobs.
This article was intiially published in French by Félicien Houindo Lokossou
Adapted in English by Ange J. A de Berry Quenum