Partnership and accountability in development initiatives: a Theatre For Development diagnosis of the Tole Tea Project

Partnership and accountability are entrenched in development policies especially with the much drive for sustainability. Partnership assures the collaboration of players in any development project as well as advocates fair treatment of all stakeholders. The reality of these concepts which guarantee the possibility of local control and joint ownership of all the processes of any project is mostly in theory. In practice it is matched by unequal power relations especially in projects established in rural areas. Using the Participatory Action Research (PAR) as well as the Theatre for Development methodology on the privatized Cameroon Tea Estates (CTE), this article contends that partnership and accountability are vital development concepts for initiatives that have the people at heart and aim at sustainability. It argues that the difficulties that the Tole people are facing today and the threat on sustainability of the CTE are due to the non- or minimal existence of a good development plan. It is the hypotheses of this paper that accountability is engendered when partnership is established at the very beginning of a project and when there is accountability, the participation of all is automatic. Secondly, the participatory engagement of all the stakeholders will lead to sustainable fairness for all as well as the sustainability of the project.

Keywords: Partnership, Accountability, Development, PAR, TfD, Sustainability.