Dar es Salaam. For Tanzania’s growing generation of technology entrepreneurs, one of the biggest barriers to growth may not be a shortage of ideas, but the difficulty of convincing those with money and markets to trust young businesses.
That is the problem the government is now trying to tackle through a new system of officially labelling technology startups — a move that could have implications far beyond the nine companies that received the first certificates.
The ICT Commission (ICTC) launched the ICT Startup Labelling programme in Dar es Salaam on September 5, creating three categories: Silver, Gold and Tanzanite, based on the stage of development reached by a startup.
The initiative is designed to give credible young technology companies a recognised identity while connecting them to opportunities in investment, public procurement, regulation, markets and capacity building.
ICTC Director General, Dr Nkundwe Mwasaga, said the programme is intended to make government support for startups more systematic, particularly by improving their access to procurement, finance and markets. “The programme aims to increase the efficiency of enabling ICT startups to meet criteria for investment, supply and public procurement,” Dr Mwasaga said in the statement.
The Commission also says labelled startups will be supported through programmes covering business, marketing, taxation, ICT and intellectual property, while efforts will be made to build confidence among investors and other potential partners.
For startup founders, the significance is simple: a government-recognised label can become a credibility signal.
One of the startup representatives, Mr Oscar Kusiluka, said young technology businesses have often found it difficult to work with public institutions despite having solutions capable of addressing real problems.
He said startups can be treated like established companies in formal processes, even when they lack the track record, financial strength or institutional relationships of larger firms.
“The challenge has been that we are young companies, so it is difficult to work with government institutions even when we have solutions with a big impact on society,” Kusiluka said.
The new recognition, he added, could help change that by giving startups a stronger basis for engaging public institutions and potential partners.
Tanzania already has a growing pool of businesses capable of supplying such solutions and partnerships.
The Tanzania Startup Ecosystem Status Report 2024 identified 1,041 active startups, supported by 95 entrepreneurship and innovation support organisations. The businesses operate across areas including fintech, agritech, healthtech, edtech and e-commerce.
The momentum has continued. Tanzania attracted $52 million in startup funding in the first half of 2026, making it Africa’s fifth-largest startup funding destination during that period, according to reports.
But funding alone will not build a strong startup economy.
The bigger challenge is turning young companies into sustainable businesses that can win contracts, generate revenue, employ people, pay taxes and eventually export their products.
This is where the labelling programme could become economically important.
Startup expert, Dr Valens Msuya, argues that the initiative takes Tanzania closer to the approach used by more developed startup ecosystems. “In these systems, governments do not simply encourage innovation but create mechanisms that help promising businesses become formal, credible and commercially viable,” he said.
In his view, many youth-led startups begin with strong ideas but struggle to navigate procurement rules, financing requirements, taxation, intellectual property and other formal business systems. “A recognised framework can give such businesses a clearer path into the formal economy while giving government and investors greater confidence in who they are dealing with,” Dr Msuya further told The Citizen.
The international experience is instructive.
In India, government-recognised startups receive concessions in public procurement, including exemptions from some prior experience, turnover and earnest-money requirements.
Through the government e-Marketplace, recognised startups can sell directly to public institutions, turning government procurement into a potential route to their first major customers and a track record for future growth.
Singapore’s IMDA Accreditation programme was established to help promising technology companies establish credentials and become credible suppliers to government and large enterprises.
The lesson for Tanzania is therefore not that a certificate automatically creates successful startups. Rather, recognition can become a bridge between innovation and the market.
That bridge will be particularly important in public procurement. ICTC says the labelling programme is intended to improve startups’ access to public supply and procurement opportunities…
For a country seeking to deepen its digital economy, this could have a multiplier effect.
The more startups that move from prototypes to paying customers, the greater their potential contribution through employment, domestic production, tax revenues, productivity, investment and exports.
