World trade, including especially a big part of the world’s energy resources, has to pass certain “choke points ” between areas of production and their final destination. One of these “choke points ” is the Straits of Malacca, the sea passage connecting the China Sea with the Indian Ocean. As the Strait is only 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km) wide at its narrowest point, the

In 1996, the Ghanaian government has started a water reform process, which put the countries water resources under the control of the Water Resources Commission (WRC). This appointed commission consists of representatives of water providers, statutory regulatory agencies, irrigation officials, NGOs, women and traditional authorities. This commission has been assigned the task to ensure the economically efficient, ecologically sustainable, socially equitable and gender sensitive development of the country’s water resources. Using patterns of resource management in the irrigation sector of northern Ghana as example, this article shows that serious obstacles towards the local implementation of the water reform exist. Currently the management and allocation of resources is largely disobeying the regulations, rules and laws set out by various official agencies. Competing local authorities and institutions, lacking legitimacy and enforceability of official rules, as well as corruption, nepotism and political clientelism make resource management prone to conflicts, contestations and renegotiations. Non-transparent and irresponsible resource management compromises the efficiency, sustainability and equity of the irrigation sector. As the WRC lacks the competencies and resources to manage water resources at the local level, but has to rely on already existing structures the prospects for the implementation the water reform remains therefore questionable. 4 1.

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Die ZBW räumt Ihnen als Nutzerin/Nutzer das unentgeltliche, räumlich unbeschränkte und zeitlich auf die Dauer des Schutzrechts beschränkte einfache Recht ein, das ausgewählte Werk im Rahmen der unter

The expansion of trade and markets has produced profound changes in the social conditions and culture of societies around the globe. A short visit to a department store in Singapore, Shanghai or Caracas will convince us of the existence of a global market economy. We can muster and buy shirts made in Indonesia but with a label designed in New York or Frankfurt, canned tomatoes grown in Bulgaria, custom jewellery from the Philippines, electronic gadgets from Japan or Taiwan, brown bread from Germany, French cheese and Singaporean tofu, shark fins from Brazil and marmalade from England. Not all, but some of these goods are also sold in small towns or even by petty traders up-river in Laos or Borneo. While all these places have had contacts with the world market for centuries through small scale long distance trade, the recent, much more complete integration into the modern world system adds new dimensions to the economic, social and cultural life of the societies

Acknowledgement This work was conducted within the framework of a project financed by GTZ on behalf of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany. Authors ’ address

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Abbreviations

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Authors ’ address Dr. Saravanan.V.S.