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Article ID: CBB891955164

Continuities of Dependence: Hydropower and Modernisation in Twentieth-Century Ghana (2020)

Jeffery Boadu (Author)
Pál, Viktor (Author)

Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology
Volume: 25
Issue: 2
Pages: 29-44

URI: http://www.jstor.org/stable/26983753

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Energy policy Energy resources and technologies Mines and mining Aluminum and aluminum industry Great Britain, colonies Hydroelectric power 20th century Ghana

Scholars argue that Africa’s current energy issues are deeply rooted in Africa’s colonial past and the mismanagement and exploitation of African colonies by its colonial masters. Relatively unknown to the history of technology community, this article explores the water history of Ghana to understand better the political, economic, technological and social factors which contributed to the current problems of energy supply in Ghana and Africa in general. This article especially tackles the responsibility of post-colonial Africa’s elites when it comes to the energy issues of Ghana, and Africa in general. The first part of this article explores the “Hydro-Dam Scheme,” a scheme initiated under Ghana’s colonial regime between 1920 and 1956 and meant to develop Ghana’s hydropower resources primarily in order to enhance reliable power supply to the country’s aluminium industries. The British colonial administration did not implement a social policy plan along with the implementation of the “Hydro-Dam Scheme” and that deficiency had a decisive impact on the energy modernization and modernization models of colonial Ghana. After this, the article turns to an exploration of the energy development schemes and policies implemented after Ghana gained independence. The article aims to investigate how Ghana’s post-colonial elites changed or did not change the course of hydropower and energy development choices set by the former colonial regime. This links the Ghana case study to global post-colonial histories of resource exploitation and hydropower development as a modernisation experiment. Finally, the article aims to analyze the Ghanian case of disenchantment with the promises of the post-colonial modernisation experiment driven by the country’s new political and economic elites.

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