An Interim Economic Appraisal of the Volta Resettlement Scheme - Ghana

Abstract

The problem of resettling people whose homes are disrupted by the creation of darns is one vd1ich will be faced more frequently in various countries of the world as the need for hydro-electricity in the newly developing countries increases. The problem of what to do v7ith people so displaced is subject to many different solutions. First, people can be given some form of compensation based on the goods, crops, houses and other buildings which they are about to lose, and then left to rehabilitate themselves elsewhere. Secondly, they can be resettled in new towns and villages with or without compensation for loss of land and then left to develop for themselves new methods and sources of income. Or thirdly; if the state takes a much wider view of its need to participate in economic development, it may decide that in addition to settling the people in new' townships it must also help to find them new sources of income, thus taking a much greater responsibility for rehabilitation. This latter course is most important where there are scarcities of land, where the people involved have had specific sources of income and would find it difficult to secure alternative sources of employment, and where there are clan and tribal differences so thtl.t carefully planned resettlement is needed to prevent sociological md political unrest All these conditions existed in the Volta Basin. land was particularly scarce in the south, south-east and south-west of the dam. There were many tribal and land ownership disputes awaiting to be rekindled which could have caused conflict. The people involved were poor, nearly all illiterate, nearly all were farmers and with no other source of income, apart from the Ewes, a migrant tribe which undertook fishing.