The Role of Community Theatre Performance in Building Disaster-Resilient Communities: Empirical Evidence from Montepuez and Metuge Districts, Cabo Delgado, Mozambique

Abstract

This study investigates the role of community theatre performance in building disaster resilience in Montepuez and Metuge districts, Cabo Delgado Province, northern Mozambique, a context shaped by recurrent natural hazards, armed insurgency, and mass displacement. Disaster risk reduction in conflict-affected, linguistically diverse contexts demands communication approaches that go beyond information transmission to foster the social trust, collective agency, and cultural resonance through which preparedness action becomes possible. Drawing on a convergent mixed-methods design integrating a household survey of 724 respondents, 30 key informant interviews, and four focus group discussions, this study produces the largest empirical assessment of theatre-based DRR conducted in this province to date. Across every measured outcome domain: disaster awareness, preparedness behaviour, social cohesion, and early warning response; theatre-exposed households significantly outperformed comparison communities, with composite effect sizes considerably exceeding conventional thresholds for large and substantively important programme effects. Theatre-exposed households were nearly three times as likely to have assembled emergency kits, walked evacuation routes, and attended community DRR meetings. Social cohesion gains were particularly pronounced in the displacement-concentrated Metuge context, suggesting a distinctive affinity between theatre's social capital-building properties and the social repair needs of conflict-affected communities. The qualitative evidence explains why theatre performed in local languages, drawing on lived community experience, and followed by structured post-performance dialogue produced the narrative identification and collective deliberation that formal DRR channels structurally cannot achieve. However, programme sustainability remains fragile, constrained by NGO funding dependency, inadequate actor compensation, and limited integration into government DRR planning frameworks. The study concludes that institutionalising community theatre within formal DRR policy through dedicated budget lines, government-theatre partnerships, and pre-agreed activation protocols is both empirically justified and practically achievable in Cabo Delgado and comparable humanitarian settings across sub-Saharan Africa.

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