Studies of populations affected by large dams are usually about physically displaced and resettled communities. This book on the Volta River Project breaks with the mould and tackles the long term environmental and socio-economic impacts of the Akosombo and Kpong Dams and the livelihood responses of two neglected groups- downstream and lakeside communities. In a detailed study which takes a gendered political economy of livelihoods approach, the book examines livelihoods in downstream and lakeside communities from a historical perspective. The study takes into account the contribution of factors, such as the environmental restructuring of the Lower Volta and the exodus of its most economically active population to the Volta Lake, the state's neglect of affected communities, the changing economic and social context of Ghana, and social relations of class, gender and kinship (including inter-generational relations) to livelihood trajectories and outcomes.