Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba has challenged government planners to move from designing development plans to ensuring they deliver measurable results, warning that Tanzania’s Vision 2050 will require faster implementation and stronger monitoring.
Dr Nchemba said planners, economists and other government officials must help drive the economic transformation envisaged under the long-term blueprint, including the target of building a $1 trillion economy and raising annual per capita income to $7,000 by 2050.
He made the remarks on Thursday, September 17, 2026, when he opened and closed the Tanzania Planners Conference at the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC).
Tanzania began implementing Vision 2050 on July 1, 2026, with the blueprint setting out the country’s development priorities for the next 25 years. Its implementation is now being anchored in the Fourth Five-Year Development Plan (2026/27–2030/31).
Dr Nchemba said achieving the targets would require officials to abandon business as usual and make decisions based on evidence, while giving the private sector a bigger role in driving investment and job creation.
“Tanzania has officially started implementing Vision 2050. To achieve the results we want, we must work faster, abandon business as usual and change the negative perception towards the private sector,” he said.
He said the private sector is expected to account for 70 percent of Vision 2050 implementation, making its participation essential to achieving the country’s economic targets.
The Prime Minister consequently urged planners to use research and reliable data when developing public-private partnerships (PPPs), rather than avoiding them because of fear.
He said a stronger partnership between the public and private sectors would help unlock investment and expand economic opportunities.
Dr Nchemba also linked the success of Vision 2050 to Tanzania’s ability to finance its own development priorities.
He said changes in the global financing environment, including reduced availability of grants and concessional loans, required the country to widen its domestic revenue base.
He urged government officials to support implementation of recommendations made by the Presidential Tax System Review Commission to strengthen domestic revenue mobilisation and reduce dependence on external financing.
“The changing global environment and the decline in grants and concessional loans mean we must expand our domestic revenue sources,” he said.
The Prime Minister also called for closer coordination between government policies, development plans and budgets, saying frequent changes in priorities undermine implementation.
He recalled that some ministries had previously sought to change their priorities shortly after their budgets were approved by Parliament.
“I remember when I was Finance Minister, ministries would have their budgets approved during the Budget Session, but by July they would come asking to change their priorities because the things they were supposed to do were not included in the budgets they had requested and Parliament had approved,” he said.
Dr Nchemba said planners should ensure flagship projects are completed on time, within approved budgets and to the required standards.
He identified monitoring and evaluation as an area requiring greater attention, saying having plans and monitoring systems alone was not enough if officials failed to follow up implementation on the ground.
“One of the areas where we have not performed well is monitoring and evaluation. We still have work to do,” he said.
He directed monitoring and evaluation experts to move beyond offices and reports and follow up development programmes at regional, district and local government levels.
He said effective monitoring would help identify implementation problems early, prevent emergencies and protect public resources from being wasted.
Earlier, Minister of State in the President’s Office for Planning and Investment, Prof Kitila Mkumbo, said future planners’ conferences should shift their focus from discussing plans to assessing actual results.
Prof Mkumbo said the government had already put in place the legal and strategic frameworks needed to guide Tanzania’s development over the next 25 years.
“Future conferences should not only be about discussing plans. They should focus on reporting the results of implementation,” he said.
The Secretary-General in the President’s Office for Planning and Investment and Executive Secretary of the National Planning Commission, Dr Tausi Kida, said more than 1,300 participants from all 26 mainland regions attended the conference.
The participants included economists, statisticians, planning officers, researchers and government officials from ministries, regional secretariats and local government authorities, alongside private-sector and development stakeholders.
Dr Kida said the conference was the second since the National Planning Commission was re-established in 2023 and provided a platform for sharing experience and strengthening inclusive development planning.
With Vision 2050 now entering its implementation phase, the conference placed the focus on a central challenge for government: ensuring that national ambitions are translated into properly funded projects, measurable outcomes and services that deliver tangible benefits to citizens.