Critique: Tanzania has not been sleepwalking into global irrelevance

By Dr Bravious Kahyoza

It is easy to accuse a nation of drifting. “Sleepwalking into irrelevance” is a phrase that begs for attention, daring readers to nod along as if decline were a simple equation.

Charles Makakala’s piece does exactly that, marshalling statistics and rankings to argue that Tanzania has been outpaced by Kenya, Rwanda, Vietnam, and others.

It looks convincing on the surface, but only if one treats numbers as gospel and ignores the deeper story.

Numbers, after all, don’t always lie, but they rarely tell the whole truth. They can be plucked out of context, framed selectively, and serve as evidence of failure.

But Tanzania, when examined through the lenses of history, diplomacy, and lived experience, presents a more complicated picture—one that reveals strength where Makakala insists there is decline.

Take the familiar charge that Tanzania is losing its competitive edge. Yes, foreign direct investment as a share of GDP—around 2.2 percent in 2023—trails Rwanda’s 7.4 percent and Vietnam’s 15 percent.

Those numbers sound damning until you realize Rwanda’s economy is a fraction of Tanzania’s and thrives on flashy projects that inflate ratios without ensuring sustainability.

Tanzania, by contrast, quietly attracted nearly $1.2 billion in FDI, a larger absolute figure than Rwanda’s, and it did so without selling its sovereignty for short-term gains.

Vietnam’s comparison is equally misleading. It sits at the heart of Asian supply chains, the beneficiary of decades of industrial planning that Tanzania could never simply replicate.

Tanzania is charting its own course—one rooted in sovereignty, stability, and resource stewardship rather than chasing quick manufacturing booms. To dismiss this as irrelevant is to miss the point of what kind of relevance Tanzania is building.

The Human Capital Index is another favorite weapon. Tanzania’s children, we are told, will reach only 40 percent of their potential productivity, compared to Vietnam’s 69 percent. The gap is undeniable, but what gets buried is the trajectory.

Tanzania’s literacy rate has risen steadily, reaching nearly 80 percent in 2022. School fees were abolished, classrooms expanded, and today the country boasts one of the largest student populations in East Africa.

Of course, quality remains an issue. But relevance is not forged by perfection; it is forged by persistence. Nations matter because they pull millions into schools who would otherwise be left behind, then steadily improve over time.

I have walked through rural Tanzanian classrooms filled with children whose parents never saw a chalkboard, and it is impossible to call that irrelevant. That is the quiet power of progress.

Critics also deride Tanzania’s logistics, citing its Logistics Performance Index ranking in the 120s. Kenya, they note, does better. But such comparisons forget geography.

Tanzania is the gateway to six landlocked countries. Its ports handle more than 90 percent of Zambia’s trade, a third of Rwanda’s, and substantial volumes for Malawi, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dar es Salaam’s port alone processed 17 million tons of cargo in 2023, up from 10 million just a decade earlier. That is not the mark of irrelevance—it is the mark of indispensability. Neighbors rely on Tanzanian infrastructure not because it is flawless but because it is the region’s lifeline.

Anyone who has stood at Tunduma and watched convoys of trucks streaming across borders knows that relevance is measured not only in indexes but in the relentless hum of commerce.

Makakala’s claim that Tanzania lags in high-tech exports is also true on paper. Less than one percent of its trade comes from such products, while Vietnam boasts double digits. But Tanzania’s comparative advantage is different.

It is Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer, exporting $2.7 billion in 2022. It sits on 57 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, one of the world’s largest reserves, with projects underway that could vault it into the top tier of LNG exporters by the 2030s.

This resource wealth does not make Tanzania a tech hub, but it does command international respect. In an era where energy security is reshaping alliances, Tanzania’s relevance is written in contracts and pipelines. European, American, and Asian investors know it. They are not circling a country that doesn’t matter.

Soft power is another front Makakala overlooks. He points to Tanzania’s passport ranking—visa-free access to 73 countries—as evidence of weakness. But influence cannot be reduced to the number of borders crossed without a stamp. It is also cultural, linguistic, and symbolic.

Swahili, Tanzania’s national language, is now an official language of the African Union. It stretches from South Africa to the DRC, uniting classrooms and media. Add to this the magnetism of Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar, and the Serengeti, which drew nearly 1.5 million tourists in 2023, even as the world reeled from pandemic aftershocks.

Tourists don’t just leave with photos—they carry home an impression of Tanzania as a place of peace, beauty, and authenticity. That is soft power you cannot quantify easily, but it lingers.

Diplomacy offers perhaps the strongest rebuttal to the claim of irrelevance. Apart from helping many African countries during the African liberation struggles, Tanzania has been one of the most consistent contributors to UN peacekeeping, sending over thousands of soldiers and other prominent leaders and experts to missions from Lebanon to Liberia to the DRC.

At home, stability has granted it a moral voice abroad. It is a quiet but enduring kind of relevance.

Within SADC, Tanzania has often played the role of a steady anchor. From August 2024 to 2025, it chaired the SADC Troika Organ, dispatching senior leaders to head electoral observer missions in Botswana, Namibia, Mauritius, and Mozambique.

Those missions mattered, shaping democratic legitimacy in the region. Tanzania was not on the sidelines—it was in the thick of ensuring Southern Africa’s political credibility.

Historically, its contributions were even more profound. More than 20,000 Tanzanian soldiers fought during and after Africa’s liberation struggles, offering sanctuary and arms to movements from Mozambique to South Africa.

Those sacrifices echo still. Any narrative that erases this legacy in favor of index rankings is shallow at best, dishonest at worst.

Tanzania has also consistently been a member of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC), the AU's primary decision-making body for conflict prevention, management, and resolution.

Re-elected with a two-year mandate effective from April 1, 2024, Tanzania plays a significant role in the PSC, which is central to the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), promoting peace, security, and stability across the continent.

Leaders from Benjamin Mkapa’s steady diplomacy, to Jakaya Kikwete’s hands-on mediation as AU chair, to Magufuli’s insistence on African self-reliance, and now Samia Suluhu Hassan’s push for women’s leadership and climate diplomacy, have each carved a distinct mark in continental affairs.

To frame such continuity as “sleepwalking into irrelevance” is to overlook how Tanzania has repeatedly anchored Africa’s conversations and actions, often shaping outcomes in ways that statistics alone cannot capture.

Even the criticism that Tanzania prefers stability over dynamism deserves rethinking. In Africa, where volatility too often unravels progress, stability is a scarce commodity. Investors understand this better than analysts.

That is why Shell and Equinor signed a $2.5 billion LNG framework in 2022. That is why mining giants stay put even when regulations shift. They trust the ground beneath their feet.

Sleepwalking? Hardly. Tanzania is not sprinting recklessly, nor is it standing still. It is moving deliberately, eyes open, through a volatile world. There is caution, yes, but caution is not irrelevance. It is a strategy, one designed to ensure endurance rather than collapse.

Challenges remain, as they do for every nation. Bureaucracy drags on investment. Corruption must be tackled with greater force.

Education must leap from access to quality, equipping youth with modern skills. Tanzania also needs to project its foreign policy voice with more clarity, telling the world not only what it is but what it aspires to be. These are the challenges of ambition, not decay.

I have seen with my own eyes the cranes rising above Dar es Salaam’s skyline, the hum of entrepreneurs in co-working spaces, and the optimism etched in the faces of young graduates.

I have spoken to Tanzanian peacekeepers who wear their blue helmets with quiet pride, fully aware that their efforts hold fragile states together.

I have also met refugees who found sanctuary on Tanzanian soil, proof of a tradition of hospitality that has defined East Africa for decades. These are not statistics. They are lived experiences that remind us of the human dimension of relevance.

Tanzania is not Vietnam, Rwanda, or Kenya. It does not need to be. Its relevance is built on stability, cultural reach, resource wealth, and patient diplomacy.

It may not shout on the world stage, but it endures. And in a world that grows noisier, more fragile, and more unpredictable by the day, endurance may be the truest form of influence.

Dr Bravious Kahyoza is an Economist and International Affair Analyst