Ethnicity, Politics and Development in Tanzania

Abstract

Ethnicity relation in Africa is a sensitive issue. Tanzania is no exception to this. She has, however, been able to unite about 120 different ethnic groups to form a nation. In Tanzania ethnicity alliance is an asset rather than a hindrance to the development of the country. Ethnicity is the basis for the political constituencies. All elected members to the Parliament must come from a recognized constituency, which unfortunately, us along the ethnicity lines. Ethnicity is also used for the mobilization of financial resources for the self-help programs in the rural areas. People from a certain ethnic-group who happen to live in urban areas meet among themselves to collect money for the building of a dispensary or school in their perspective rural areas. This article describes, however, a problem which occurred during Nyerere time. That is, most of the high offices were held by people from his area-Mara Region. Although not all from the same ethnic group as that of Nyerere, but since they are from the same zone or region, this strengthened the regional or zonal identity and power structure. At another level this article shows that due to ethnicity an regional/zonal identity, the gap of development will widen because some ethnic group will take advantage in the allocation of resources depending on who is in power at high level.