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Theatre for Development (TfD) is a process whereby the community uses theatre, especially African traditional theatre forms, to address their development issues. In Tanzania, TfD came as a result of many factors; poor communication approaches used by the state in addressing development in the late 1970s, the economic crisis of the 1970s, the implementation of IMF and World Bank pressure to adopt Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) among others. Liberal policies imposed mostly from Euro-America proposed non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to replace the state in addressing development, as they were perceived to be more democratic and less authoritative. Most of the supported activities of NGOs became those linked to development or that are in the position to bring about development in the fields of health, sanitation, education, gender, and democracy. Therefore, even theatre that was supported by donors was linked to or addressed 'development'. In most cases, funding institutions have their own objectives, missions, and goals to fulfil. This paper tries to question the role of TfD in present Tanzania. It argues that, since most of the TfD projects have been funded by foreign donors and communities have no economic control of their own development concerns, it is clear that TfD is playing a double deal, community empowerment on the one hand and disempowerment on the other.

Laura Fair is Professor of History at Michigan State University in the U.S.A. She lived in Zanzibar for many years doing research for her first book: Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community and Identity in Post-abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945. In this book she illustrates how former slaves used the social and cultural tools at their command to demonstrate their freedom from slavery and articulate alternative visions of justice under colonialism. Her current book project is a wide-ranging study of commercial cinema in colonial and post-colonial Tanzania, exploring changes in exhibition, d