About TERI — Tanzania Economic Research Institute
About the Institute

Research built by argument, not by committee sign-off.

TERI exists because good economic research survives contact with disagreement. We built an institute around that idea.

Our Origin

Founded by TICGL

The Tanzania Economic Research Institute (TERI) was established by Tanzania Investment and Consultant Group Ltd (TICGL) to give the firm’s research mandate a dedicated institutional home — separate from client advisory work, but feeding it directly.

TICGL had spent years producing sector analysis, feasibility studies, and policy advisory for government, development partners, and the private sector. TERI was created to strengthen that research capacity: a standing body of fellows and sector discussants whose full-time work is to interrogate Tanzania’s economic questions, not just answer the ones a client happens to be paying for.

TERI remains structurally linked to TICGL — sharing its data infrastructure, its Dar es Salaam base, and its relationships with government and development partners — while operating with its own editorial and research independence.

TICGL → TERI

TICGL is the parent organisation: investment, PPP, and strategic advisory. TERI is its research institute, publishing the evidence base that advisory work draws on.

What makes TERI different from a consulting desk

  • →Findings are contested internally before they carry the institute’s name.
  • →Fellows hold standing research briefs, not just client deliverables.
  • →The roundtable meets on a fixed cadence, independent of any single engagement.
Mission

To convene Tanzania’s sharpest economic thinking into research that changes decisions.

We produce evidence, sector analysis, and investment intelligence that gives policymakers, investors, and development partners something firmer than opinion to act on.

Vision

East Africa’s most argued-over — and most trusted — research institute.

We measure trust not by consensus but by how well our findings survive scrutiny, replication, and time.

Principles

What governs the roundtable

Principle 01

Contestability

No finding is published until it has been argued against, in the room, by another fellow.

Principle 02

Independence

TERI’s editorial conclusions are not shaped by any funder, client, or political stakeholder — including TICGL.

Principle 03

Evidentiary Rigour

Every claim is traceable to a data source, model, or primary consultation — never asserted on authority alone.

Principle 04

Local Grounding

Frameworks are international; the questions, data, and context are unmistakably Tanzanian.

Principle 05

Policy Relevance

A research question earns a place on the agenda only if an answer would actually change a decision.

Principle 06

Open Disagreement

Dissent is recorded, not smoothed over — published briefs may carry a fellow’s minority view.

Governance

How the institute is organised

A small, deliberately flat structure — built to keep the roundtable, not a hierarchy, at the centre of the work.

Leadership

Director of Research

Sets the research agenda, chairs the roundtable, and signs off publications on behalf of the institute.

Core Body

Roundtable of Fellows

Lead economists and sector specialists holding standing research briefs across TERI’s six pillars.

Support

Research Secretariat

Data analysts and research assistants who resource the roundtable — sourcing data, drafting, and production.

See who sits at the table.

Meet TERI’s Director of Research, lead fellows, and affiliated experts.

Meet the Fellows →