Changing Natural Resource Regimes in Northern Ghana

Book excerpt: Colonial and national interventions have considerably changed the natural resource regimes regarding water and land in Northern Ghana. However, this change has not led to the establishment of new institutions, but different actors - farmers, bureaucrats, earthpriests, chiefs, and politicians - are continuously engaged in negotiation process over (natural) resources. While the institutional and distributional outcomes of these negotiation processes remain inconclusive they have led to a precarious local power balance, in which different actors rely on different institutions and changing political alliances to pursue their interests.