By 1967, when the water level reaches its maximum, the Volta dam will have created one of the largest man-made lakes in the world, thereby completing a scheme which has fascinated government officials, business men, and politicians since the early years of the century. The purpose of the symposium, which was sponsored jointly by the Volta River Authority and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, was to consider the progress made so far on one aspect of this complex project, namely the resettlement programme. Building the Volta dam has meant flooding some 3,275 square miles, or approximately 4 per cent of Ghana's land surface. In human terms it has meant disrupting the lives of more than 80,000 people, whose homes are being flooded by the rising waters of the Volta lake. The Volta River Authority has been charged with the responsibility of resettling these displaced persons, taking as its guiding principle the ruling laid down by President Nkrumah that ‘nobody should be worse off than before’. Ultimately, of course, the hope is that living standards will be improved very considerably.