Enabling principles scores
In 2025, Tanzania’s enabling environment for civil society continued to narrow across multiple dimensions, with fundamental freedoms increasingly constrained by arbitrary arrests, politically motivated prosecutions, and electoral violence that created a climate of fear and inhibited open participation in public life. Civil society actors, including activists and opposition figures, faced assaults and intimidation, while several opposition candidates were barred from standing in elections, undermining the right to freely associate, assemble, and engage in political processes. The legal and regulatory framework remained restrictive, with authorities applying laws in ways that enabled censorship, criminalisation of dissent, and punitive action against organisations and individuals accused of spreading “false information” or challenging state narratives.
Access to sustainable and flexible resources was also weakened as civic actors operated in an environment marked by surveillance, heightened scrutiny, and disruptions to both physical and digital spaces, limiting their ability to mobilise safely and pursue long‑term goals. State openness and responsiveness similarly declined, with officials issuing warnings against perceived external interference, denying access to observers, and fostering an atmosphere in which engagement with government processes grew increasingly perilous. Public discourse about civil society became more hostile, fuelled by negative rhetoric from political figures depicting activists as threats to peace, which further eroded social trust and diminished societal support for independent civic action.
Moreover, the digital sphere—an essential space for organising, information‑sharing, and public dialogue—came under severe restriction through internet service disruptions, platform bans, rising data costs, and the criminalisation of VPN use, all of which curtailed access to secure online environments and impeded civil society’s ability to operate safely and effectively.
