Theatre for Development and Food Security in Tanzania

Abstract

In Tanzania, NGOs have commissioned and sponsored most of the theatre-for-development (TFD) initiatives to date.  However, as  Penina Mlama (1993) observed, theatre for development practitioners were called into communities after some problems had occurred.  At the end of the process, the facilitators went away leaving the people without concrete implementation strategies, or left the community members to seek help from the same structures, which were against their development initiatives.  The development agencies, on the other hand, could not implement the solution reached during the theatre-for-development process as may of them had lost hope.  Their duration of the project expired and hence they could no longer have the financial capability of carrying out another project in the same village, or had changed their priorities and strategies.  The Integrated Food Security Programmed (IFSP) in Rukwa region- a programme that was initiated and funded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) – introduced an alternative approach.  IFSPP commissioned theatre-for-development of its programmes in Rukwa region in 1993.  This article, using IFSP-Rukwa as a case study, examines how the theatre for development programme was utilised as a forum for planning, and whether the solution and recommendations given during the process were headed by the IFSP during the implementation stage.