Communities across the South Asian region can (and should) be empowered through greater regional cooperation and collaboration. In fact, the betterment of the lives of people in South Asia and the movement towards a more progressive and prosperous world necessitates a more interconnected and structurally sound South Asian region. The fact that South Asia is one of the least integrated regions in the world provides an incredible opportunity to the concerned nations in the form of potential social as well as economic progress that can be achieved through constructively planned cooperation and time-bound implementation of necessary cooperative measures.
South Asia has been characterized by rapid GDP growth since the 1980s, averaging nearly 6%
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South Asia’s poor would probably gain most from regional cooperation in water and climate. The gradual melting of the Himalayan glaciers have lent credence to the disastrous prospect of reduced water availability in the South Asian region and an increased frequency of floods and cyclones, while the rising sea level in the subcontinental waters have rendered collective action for climate control to reduce vulnerability and poverty necessary. The cooperation of upstream countries in relation to finding solutions for flood control, irrigation and water transportation is essential. Clearly then, effective flood mitigation necessitates an active cross-border cooperation on water between India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Climate change is predicted to have a serious impact on the lives and livelihoods of large numbers of people in the region with increased incidence of floods and droughts in areas that are already severely affected by current unpredictable environmental shocks. The permanence of income of these large numbers of poor people is seriously challenged by the frequent water shortages and intermittent floods. Greater regional cooperation can enable better environmental management and the region can yield major benefits including increased irrigated agriculture and hydropower production. Effective cooperation between India and Nepal in relation to water resources, for instance, can provide tremendous benefits to both nations: watershed management and storage in Nepal would generate irrigation benefits in Nepal and flood control benefits in the state of Bihar in India. Better water storage practices in India could provide hydro-electricpower and flood control in India and dry-season water augmentation in Bangladesh, thereby underlining the need for an effective agreement between India and Bangladesh to that
Despite American government being characteristically dominated by cooperative feudalism, there is a persistence of national supremacy elements, state’s rights, and dual fideism. The current situation can, therefore, be regarded as balanced federalism. A cooperative relationship between state government and the national government is specifically rooted in a transfer of payments done from the national government to government in lower levels, which is referred to as fiscal feudalism (Bednar, 2009). There are mainly two types of grants which are block grants and categorical grants. This is a federal aid which is spent by states within a given policy area, although with much state discretion. General revenue sharing (GRS) was used back in the 1970s and 1980s. GRS awarded the state maximum control over policies, but gaining political support was difficult for them.
risen to seventh in the world, and its economy is growing at over nine percent
4. United Nations Development Programme, U.N. Human Development Report 2006, Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty, and the Global Water Crisis, web. 6 Dec. 2009 http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr2006_english_summary.pdf
...limate change as one of the challenges for transboundary water management, the actual international legal framework (bilateral and multilateral agreements) will also be adversely affected. Generally, transboundary agreements have not been designed to cope with increased climate variability, as they are often restricted by rigid definitions of water allocation rather than percentages. The certainty of climate variability results in an increased pressure over alternative governance structures, potentially diminishing the legitimacy of weak international agreements (Suhardiman and Giordano, 2012). The declaration of the United Nations in 2013 as the International Year of Cooperation, which foster states and other non-state actors to promote actions to achieve cooperation in water related goals, aims the international need for new transboundary governance assessments.
ASEAN was formed to promote economic growth, understand each other cultures and to enhance and sustain own country’s living standards so as to allow their citizens to maximize their full potential. These countries will also arrange a meeting regularly so as to discuss on how to improve on ASEAN Trade and also with more interaction, they are able to synchronize among them and it has the benefit to ensure that civil peace are always in place.
Water Issues in South Asia If there is any single most important issue that mars bilateral relations among the countries of the subcontinent, it is water. The issues of cross-border water distribution, utilisation, management and mega irrigation/hydro-electric power projects affecting the upper and lower riparian countries are gradually taking centre-stage in defining interstate relations as water scarcity increases and both drought and floods make life too often miserable. Thanks to its location, size and contiguous borders with other South Asian countries, it is India, in its capacity as both upper and lower riparian, that has come into conflict with most of its neighbours, except Bhutan, on the cross-border water issues. Given an atmosphere of mistrust, an upper riparian India has serious issues to resolve with lower riparian Pakistan and Bangladesh and, despite being lower riparian, with the upper riparian Nepal.
Bangladesh is one of flood prone countries and it is frequently hit by devastating cyclones, shocking flood and crippling droughts. Bangladesh has intricate river system with three major rivers- the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghana and it gives the country as a water resource. On the other hand, country is prone to flood disaster almost every year with wide variation in magnitude and intensity. Flood has been top severe disaster in Bangladesh with disastrous impacts to environment and socio-economic mostly.
CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, or commonly known as the Dominican RepublicCentral America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), is a free trade agreement. In international trade, free trade is an idealized market model, often stated as a political objective, in which trade of goods and services between countries are not hindered by government imposed tariffs (taxes on imports) or non-tariffs (Wikipedia, 2007).
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) began in 1989 in reaction to the developing interdependence among Asia-Pacific economies. At first this organization was a group that met unofficially. APEC now has become the crucial provincial conduit for encouraging open trade and realistic economic cooperation. It’s objective is to progress Asia-Pacific economic vitality and the essence of the people.
East Asia has already become the most dynamic region in the world during the last decade. The United States has been suffering from the 2008 financial crisis created by its own mismanaged financial sector, and only recently did the Federal Reserve decide to start slowing down the quantitative easing, demonstrating a slightly positive economic prospective. The Europe, which has already fully integrated itself and with the United States economically, collapsed right after the financial crisis not only because of its vast amount of investment in the US security market, but also because of its sovereign debt crisis in some of its member states. However, countries in East Asia remained robust and served as the growth engine of the world in the last few years. One of the major problems that East Asia is facing today is the lack of regionalism that resembles the NAFTA and the European Union. Nevertheless, the Cold War, the Asian financial crisis, and 9/11 terrorist attack have been very influential factors that stimulate the regionalism of East Asia.
People in Bangladesh aren’t educated enough to build any appropriate flood protection and to maintain them. The problem concerning Bangladesh is that most of the land is only a few feed above water and very unstable. No amount of river control can change this. To alleviate the impact of flooding Bangladesh’s only choice has to be severe population controls to reduce the density of people on this land and also to encourage a movement away from the lowest lying areas. It is also believed that Bangladesh will each year run a three-times higher risk of suffering an exceptionally wet monsoon compared with the probability today, thus it is also expected that parts of Bangladesh face the risk of more frequent, major floods in the latter half of this century because of global warming.
Economic boom in India and China: India and China account for 1/3 of the world population and these countries have seen a great economic boom in the recent years and this partially is attributed to the rising costs. Around the world, people have eaten more as they grew richer. This phenomenon is called Nutritional transition. Hundreds of millions more people are now rich enough to eat meat compared with 10 years ago, with meat consumption in China more than doubling over the past 20 years.
The problem of water scarcity has increasingly spread throughout the world as of yet, The UN reports that within the next half- century up to 7 billion people in 60 countries which is more than the whole present population will face water scarcity (Sawin “Water Scarcity could Overwhelm the Next Generation”). As well the demand for freshwater has tripled over the past 50 years, and is continuing to rise as a result of population growth and economic development. 70% of this demand derives from agriculture which shows the influence of water on food supply globally as well not just drinking water (Sawin “Water Scarcity could overwhelm the Next Generation”). But increasing water use is not just a matter of the greater number of people needing it to drink and eat; it also comes from pollution and misuse of water supplies, by either dumping or runoff of bacteria or chemicals into water. This also “causes other pollutions as well such as soil and air pollution, accelerating wetland damage and human caused global warming” (Smith and Thomassey 25). According to UN report, recent estimates suggest that climate change will account for about 20 percent of the increase in global water scarcity in coming decades.
Regional Integration is when an economic alliance or trade agreement is formed among countries that are located geographically close to one another. This paper analyzes the role of regional integration in promoting global business, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of regional integration using a trading block as an example, and compares the economic development stages of two countries within a chosen region and discusses the ramifications of the region’s economic development for global business.
Global warming is one of the main causes, which leads to the lack of water and drought. A drought-like condition exists in most of India’s part. Government of India states that 68% of the country is disposed to the drought, which (consequences are) leads to massive migration of people to more favorable places, famine, conflicts among inhabitants. India is known in the world as one of the biggest producers of water-intensive crops such as rice, sugarcane and wheat. According to a survey done by Grail Research, approximately 82% of total water is used for agricultural consumption and 90% of it is employed for irrigation of rice, wheat and sugarcane (Grail Research, LLC, 2009). There are several solutions which could lead to the decr...