GHANA'S ELECTRIC DREAMS
A documentary film by R. Lane Clark and Stephan F. Miescher
Directed and edited by R. Lane Clark
Based on the research by Stephan F. Miescher and R. Lane Clark
Produced by R. Lane Clark, Stephan F. Miescher, and France Winddance Twine
Ghana’s Electric Dreams, a unique collaboration between filmmaker R. Lane Clark and historian Stephan F. Miescher, presents the story of the planning and wide-ranging impact of the Akosombo Dam, Ghana’s most ambitious development project. The film takes the viewer to sites affected by this hydroelectric dam and by the broader vision of modernization that it represents.
Interviews with Ghanaians, enriched by historical footage, reveal the complexity and contradictions of the Volta River Project. Ghanaians share how they have been living with the Akosombo dam for over fifty years, striving to shape it to their own needs. Recurring themes, including unintended consequences, social inequities, rural/urban divides, and gender differences, underlie this portrait of energy, power, and creativity in this West African country. The multiple viewpoints in the film demonstrate that modernization remains an unfinished project.
Akosombo is a symbol of national pride, ambivalence, and controversy within Ghana. It is also the subject of international scholarly interest and debate among those seeking just and sustainable energy solutions for the future.
Ghana’s Electric Dreams is organized into six episodes, exploring issues of energy justice and sustainability. Each part focuses on a specific promise and challenge of Akosombo.
The six 20-minute segments (ideal length for classroom screening and discussion) include:
Nkrumah’s Baby introduces the documentary series by taking the viewer back to Ghana’s struggle for independence from British colonial rule in the 1950s. For Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s charismatic leader at the time, and for the founders of the newly independent nation, the Volta River Project producing hydroelectric power was central to bringing development and prosperity to the people. In this episode we meet the filmmakers as they explore the original dreams of the project planners and of ordinary citizens, while also discovering the contradictions in the experiences of people who have lived with the challenges the Akosombo Dam has presented over more than fifty years since its construction. The film weaves archival footage from the time of the dam’s construction with contemporary recollections of ordinary Ghanaians to paint a picture of Ghana’s original “electric dream.” Nkrumah’s Baby introduces some of the main characters whose stories and aspirations are further explored in subsequent episodes of “Ghana’s Electric Dreams”
“Nobody should be made worse off” was the ideal espoused by President Kwame Nkrumah when the Akosombo Dam was promoted as the engine of development for newly independent Ghana. This episode of Ghana’s Electric Dreams interrogates the high modernist ideals of the planners and administrators of the Volta River Project. Although now retired and seated on a leafy veranda, two former heads of the Volta River Authority eagerly explain their efforts to bring progress to Ghanaians, including the 80,000 people who were resettled from the area flooded by the dam. Their explanations are juxtaposed with the recollections of rural people struggling to survive in some of the 52 resettlement towns hastily built to accommodate displaced people whose lives were forever changed. Rather than telling a story of victims and perpetrators, the film is an account of human ingenuity and resilience in the face of unplanned political turmoil and unforeseen challenges. While visiting these communities around the lake, we learn about unfulfilled promises and misplaced expectations that played out in the intersection of powerful new technologies and the clashing worldviews of urban elites and rural people.
This episode of GHANA’S ELECTRIC DREAMS explores the many unanticipated environmental and cultural consequences that arose from the creation of the world’s largest man-made lake at the time. The film takes us across the water to meet people whose lives have been forever altered by it. The Volta Lake flooded 3,283 square miles of riverine forests and fertile grasslands, creating a vast aquatic environment for a bountiful fishing industry. When the ecology downstream changed as a result of the dam, the economy of those communities dried up, causing many people to migrate to fishing villages around the lake. Children from newly impoverished areas often found themselves sold into servitude, working in the fishing industry on the lake. We learn from Ghanaians about their efforts to solve some of the unexpected problems and to adapt to the changed ecosystem.
This episode of GHANA’S ELECTRIC DREAMS features residents of two rural communities who share their experiences of “waiting for light”. Since the completion of the Akosombo Dam in 1965, some Ghanaians have waited for decades for the promised “electricity for all.” The film visits residents of Besease and Hweehwee, small towns in the Eastern Region of the country, who eagerly share their stories. They explain how communities organized to get connected to the power grid, and how electricity impacted men and women very differently. Dr. Rose Mensah-Kutin, gender advocate and journalist, explains the complexities and contradictions of this ambitious development project. Her wry analysis provides a political lens through which to understand how rural people strive to improve their living standards with the modernizing power of electrification.
This episode of GHANA’S ELECTRIC DREAMS explores the unique relationship between the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), and the government of Ghana, as the country strives for energy independence and industrialization. A subsidiary of Kaiser based in California, VALCO was the main beneficiary of the electricity generated by Akosombo and provided revenues that enabled the financing of the dam. Its smelter enjoyed below market rates for electricity, making the enterprise extremely profitable. VALCO offered its largely Ghanaian workforce high wages and an American-style corporate culture offering security and benefits, to the envy of many Ghanaians, during years of political instability and economic hardship. Former VALCO workers and managers explain to what extent the company delivered on these promises, and how workers organized to improve their situation.
In the 1960s, the newly independent nation of Ghana built a hydroelectric dam at Akosombo, with a new city at its base. Akosombo Township was to be a model city for those who came to build the dam and to work in new industries that would form in response to abundant electrical power and modern urban infrastructure. What the planners had not anticipated was the “shantytown” that grew in the center of the city to house the people who moved there to provide services for the growing population. Over a tense twenty-year period the residents negotiated with VRA city managers, who considered their area an eyesore, to find a fair solution and to become legitimate residents of Akosombo. The film weaves a web of contrasting accounts of the struggle by juxtaposing the personal recollections of residents, officials, and city planners. the film weaves a web of contrasting accounts of the struggle. The story of Akosombo township sheds light on how Ghanaians persevere to reach compromises between competing interests along the road to transforming their world.