New Project set to start in Tanzania

In recent years, Tanzania has declared its commitment to embrace ICT within its public sector. Indeed, the government has made extensive efforts to keep its promise of going towards e-governance, as recent evidence shows (for instance in the National vision 2025, where ICT has been cited as a key driver of national socio-economic development); there has been a pronounced increase in investments in ICT in the public sector in particular within ministries, departments and agencies. There is a need to strengthen ICT capacity at management level of the Tanzanian public administration. A concerted effort to raise the awareness of the targeted managers would increase the yield of other investments already made in e-governance, and facilitate communication between ICT professionals and business managers.

The University of Dar es Salaam Computing Center (UCC) has requested and been granted SPIDER support for a two year project (2009 - 2011) that aims to design and conduct general training for ICT enabled transformation to government ministries, department and agencies (MDAs) to increase the awareness and competencies of effective use and management of ICT. It comprises three main components: a) Curriculum and content development, b) establishment of ICT labs and c) awareness/training delivery. Targeted groups include ICT and Business directors/managers as well as senior systems/network administrators in the public sector.

The main output of the project will be improved ICT management skills for effective ICT integration, use and management and more importantly an increase in understanding of the importance of the role of ICT in enhancing service delivery in the public sector. Specifically the project will produce the standard training curriculum and content, state of art ICT training facility, about two hundred forty (240) trained IT/Business people and the relevant awareness amongst key stakeholders in the public sector.

It is further expected that an increase in understanding and/or awareness in the role of ICT in top management will ultimately result in capabilities enhancement, effectiveness and efficiency in public service delivery. Also the standard curriculum, flyers, training materials and two professional labs developed during the course of the project will be used for ongoing awareness and training programme. The capacity created will also be used in training ICT management to other organisations in the region.