National Information and Communications Technology Policy 1.1 ICT Situation Analysis For the period of implementation of the National ICT Policy 2003, Tanzania has made substantial progress in the deployment and utilization of ICT. The government’s guiding plan, the Tanzania Five Year Development Plan (FYDP) of 2011/12-2015/16, highlights the central role of ICTs. It states that: “It is widely accepted that productivity growth is driven by adoption of technology. ICTs will play a crucial role in the transformation process from a resource-based to a skill-based and technology-based economy in order to transform the country’s production structure…in the current information age, rapid access to data and other new technologies is essential to national socio-economic development.” Against this backdrop of clear and well-defined vision, strategy and plans, Tanzania has made commendable strides in the right direction. For example, the cost of accessing the internet in the country dropped by more than 50 percent in 2010 due to the deployment of the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) and landing of two submarine cables in Dar es Salaam, namely Eastern Africa Submarine cable System (EASSy) and Southern and Eastern Africa Communication Network (SEACOM). ICT development in Tanzania has contributed to bringing social economic development to majority of citizens. For example, the introduction of mobile money platforms in Tanzania has created new banking avenues for people who previously did not have access to banking services. As a positive ripple, the number of SMEs acting as mobile banking agents has created new forms of employment and livelihood. Moreover, ICT has contributed to improvements in both public and private sector service delivery. These include healthcare, formal and informal education and various e-services contributing to manifestation of e-government. The following sections illustrate some aspects of the progress made: 1.1.1 Communication Infrastructure The NICTP 2003 envisioned making Tanzania a hub of ICT infrastructure and ICT solutions in Eastern and Southern African region. In 2003, Tanzania entirely depended on low capacity and expensive satellite bandwidth for local and international communication. To realize this vision, two focus areas namely ICT Infrastructure and Universal Access were set out in the policy document so as to ensure availability of reliable and inter-operable ICT infrastructure and extension of ICT coverage to underserved areas, respectively. As of the year 2015, Tanzania has high capacity broadband connection to the rest of the 2