In the context of global competitiveness, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are unavoidable in this 21st Century. The Tanzanian Government is aware of this and has already introcuded ICTs to improve the with ghost workers, payments, retrenches and pay stations. e-Government is used to describe a situation where ICT is used to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the Government services. E-Government though is not only about ICTs, it is combination of ICTs and other factors, including human resource, and how, when these are combined, one can clearly see tangible returns and increased competitiveness.

Regional Impact of Information Society Technologies in Africa (IST-Africa) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on reducing the Digital Divide in Sub-Saharan Africa. Supported by the European Commission under the IST Programme of Framework Programme 6, the main objectives of IST-Africa (2005 - 2006) were: - To promote dissemination & exploitation of European IST research results in Southern Africa; - To adapt relevant European research results to regional requirements and develop training modules for e-Government, e-Health, e-Learning, ICT for Agriculture & ICT Sensitization; - To develop European and national case studies for Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania & Botswana, thus facilitating customization of training workshops for different target countries; To deliver training modules & related case studies as a series of 2 & 3 day workshops in Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania & Botswana; - To organise international conferences in Africa to facilitate EU-ACP networking, and highlight IST exploitation and international cooperation research opportunities; - To publish annual comparative research reports including case studies on ICT and eGovernment, eHealth and eLearning adoption in Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania; - To publish IST-Africa training materials, related European and national case studies, workshop reports, conference papers and presentations on the IST-Africa portal, for regional exploitation.

The IST-Africa eGovernment Training Workshop for Tanzania was held on February 28th – March 1st 2007 at the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) Conference Hall. The workshop was organized by COSTECH in collaboration with IST – Africa. The presentations were under modules which were - ICT Strategy, Methodologies and Tools which discussed the overall ICT Strategy planning process which went in detail to look at how an ICT Strategic Plan would apply to organizations and even local or provincial governments. Development of an ICT Vision, e-Strategy, Policies and Action Plan looked at the tools for developing an e-Government strategy and formulation of the e-Government strategy. The e-Government component was presented by Joash Nyitambe who gave concrete examples from the Kinondoni Municipal Council and the Ministry of Water of how they were using e-Government to enhance their services. The Cyberlaw component was presented by Adam Mambi from the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs. This presentation aimed at providing an overview of the cyber-law components and address issues and concerns of transaction over the Internet as well as how a legal framework would address them. Some of the topics included Data Protection, Privacy, Intellectual Property Rights, Electronic Contacts and Consumer Protection among others.

This Country workshop was a build up towards the IST – Africa 2007 Conference and Exhibition which is to take place in Mozambique, May 9th – 11th, 2007.

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