Involuntary Resettlement in Ghana: Implementation, Planning and Management of Social Impacts in Hydropower Projects

Abstract

Improved access to land and enhanced tenure security especially among rural farmers has been recognized as key constituent to economic and social development in Ghana. Nevertheless, the increasing demand for land to deal with the high incidence of urbanisation and population growth has greatly undermined land accessibility, tenure security and sustainable development affecting vulnerable groups in society. As a result the focus of the research seek to examine the implementation, planning and management of involuntary resettlement resulting from hydropower development and also to investigate some of the major social impacts associated with involuntary resettlement in Ghana.

The methodology considered appropriate for this research was the case study approach with emphasis on qualitative approach. Information concerning involuntary resettlement with emphasis on implementation, planning and management challenges in different manifestations was used to analyse the study. Sources of information from published peer-reviewed journals and published documents from international organizations whose activities are involved in involuntary resettlement were mainly used for undertaking the study.

This study revealed that, the reasons of challenges in involuntary resettlement in Ghana were tenure insecurity and conflicts creation, procedural delays in compensation payment, inadequate compensation and rehabilitation assistance, inadequate infrastructure provision, limited impact of livelihood restoration programs, institutional weakness, community discontent, little information disclosure, insufficient transfer and relocation assistance. It also discovered that land tenure arrangement problems such ownership structure, conflicts over ownership; inadequate funding by government, lack of institutional capacity, cultural and ethnic diversity and politicisation of development, were some of the causes of challenges in involuntary resettlement in Ghana.

It is strongly recommended that streamlining the current land acquisition processes, boost of local government revenue, conceptualizing dams as development for people, introducing cultural harmony, building strong institutional capacity and legal reforms on compensation issues would help lesson or solve the problems. The insights from this paper also advocate for further research to establish the root causes of resettlement implementation challenges particularly in Ghana and also establish a broad framework that will deal with the interrelationships between root causes of compensation challenges.

Keywords: Involuntary resettlement, Hydropower, Social impacts, Ghana