On June 3, 2026, the Executive Director of the Public-Private Partnership Centre (PPPC), Hon. David Kafulila, will deliver a public lecture at the University of Dodoma (UDOM) titled "Transforming Tanzania's Infrastructure and Public Service: The Strategic Role of PPPs in Achieving the Fourth Five-Year Development Plan Towards Vision 2050."
The lecture comes at a time when Tanzania is debating how to finance its long-term economic transformation and expand the role of private capital in development.
At one level, the event is an academic engagement involving students, lecturers, investors and business leaders. At another, it reflects a broader question confronting many developing economies: how does a nation build consensus around the economic choices required to achieve its ambitions?
More than 600 students, academics, investors and business leaders are expected to participate in a discussion that extends far beyond the walls of the university.
The significance of this lecture is best understood through the words of French philosopher Ernest Renan, who famously argued in 1882 that "a nation's existence is a daily plebiscite."
Renan's point was simple but profound: nations endure not because of geography, borders or natural resources, but because citizens continuously engage in conversations about their collective future. Nationhood is sustained through ongoing public consent.
Viewed through this lens, Kafulila's lecture represents more than an academic event. It is part of the continuous national conversation about Tanzania's economic future.
When a public leader leaves the confines of government offices to engage students, scholars, investors and ordinary citizens in discussions about development policy, he is participating in the very process Renan described, a daily renewal of public consensus.
This is particularly relevant at a time when Tanzania has adopted ambitious development goals. The country's aspiration to become a one-trillion-dollar economy by 2050 and its decision to mobilize approximately 70 percent of the Fourth Five-Year Development Plan's estimated TZS 477 trillion financing requirement from the private sector are not merely technical policy choices.
They are national choices that require public understanding, debate and support.
The lecture therefore serves an important democratic and economic function. It creates a platform for explaining the philosophy, institutional framework and practical role of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in achieving long-term development objectives.
More importantly, it invites citizens to examine whether existing models of growth are sufficient for the transformation Tanzania seeks.
One of the central questions likely to emerge from the discussion is whether public-sector-led growth alone can deliver the structural transformation needed to create jobs, increase productivity and reduce poverty.
Current economic data suggest that public expenditure remains a dominant driver of growth, raising important questions about the pace at which private sector participation must expand if Tanzania is to achieve its Vision 2050 targets.
This debate is particularly urgent in light of global economic trends. Recent World Bank research indicates that global development is proceeding at its slowest pace in decades and warns that many developing countries could require a century to reach high-income status if current growth trajectories persist.
For Tanzania, this raises a critical policy question: can the country reach its development ambitions by continuing with business as usual, or does it require a fundamentally different growth model anchored in stronger private sector participation and innovative financing mechanisms such as PPPs?
In this context, UDOM is an appropriate venue. As one of Tanzania's leading public universities and a growing participant in PPP initiatives, it provides a natural setting for rigorous examination of these questions.
The university's students and scholars represent the next generation of policy thinkers, business leaders and public servants whose understanding and support will be essential to the success of Vision 2050.
Ultimately, the importance of this lecture lies not only in what will be said about PPPs, but in what it represents. Economic transformation requires more than plans, projects and investment capital. It requires sustained public engagement around national priorities. As Renan argued nearly a century and a half ago, a nation survives through the continuous consent of its people. In today's language, nation-building is a daily conversation—and this lecture is part of that conversation.
