Event Details - Sandwich Seminar

 Between 1964 and 1968, Nigeria built and completed Kanji Dam, one of the country's most significant

infrastructural development projects following political independence from Britain. The vision of Nigerian leaders

was that the dam will be socially and economically transformative like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) did

in the Appalachian region of the United States. This presentation discusses the planning processes, particularly the

negotiations between Nigeria and the World Bank on support for the project. The negotiations highlight the

challenges that poorer nations face when balancing their national development goals with international funders'

ideological and pragmatic concerns. I argue that by narrowing the focus of the dam from its multipurpose vision,

which included cheap electricity, flood controls, irrigation, and improved navigation, to primarily power

generation, the project failed to achieve the economic and social transformations that Nigerian leaders promised

the people.