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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Hydro-power and the promise of modernity and development in Ghana: comparing the Akosombo and Bui Dam projects
Authors:Miescher, Stephan F.ISNI
Tsikata, DzodziISNI
Year:2009
Periodical:Ghana Studies (ISSN 1536-5514)
Volume:12-13
Pages:15-53
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:dams
hydroelectricity
modernization
development projects
1950-1999
Abstract:In the early 1960s, when President Kwame Nkrumah began to implement the Volta River Project by building the Akosombo Dam, Bui was supposed to follow as part of a grand plan for the industrialization and modernization of Ghana and Africa. Although there is now more than a forty-year gap between the commissioning of Akosombo in 1966 and the beginning of work on the Bui Dam in 2007, the two projects have striking similarities in the discourse of modernization and development they have generated among government officials and in local communities. This article explores the historical linkages between the dams at Akosombo and Bui. It compares their place in Ghana's development aspirations, paying attention to the similarities and differences in context, size and technologies; their contribution to the power situation in Ghana, and their financing and institutional arrangements. The article also examines the particularities of the modernization and development discourses of the two projects, the environmental concerns raised about them, and their provisions for the treatment of dam-affected communities. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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