Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 19 Today, it can be perceived that the current breed of leaders on the African Continent appear to have generally moved away from the visceral propensities of Pan­Africanism which sought to externalise Africa's problems with much of the blame laid at the doors of the colonial powers and with little responsibility and accountability demanded from them. The NEPAD Blueprint with its attendant APRM demonstrates their willingness to pursue regional integration on the terms of globally-accepted democratic norms. The Challenges of Integration in Africa Regional integration, in Africa and sub-regionally in West Africa, has suffered huge hiccups, prolonging the realisation of the expected outcomes. These hiccups have been suffered largely because of lack of political will and focus; political instability (which manifested itself in military juntas and violent conflicts); proliferation of regional and sub-regional organisations(all aimed at one form of integration or another) and the fact that the integration experiment to date has been more of a government led rather than a people- led agenda. This creates an information and acceptance abyss at the grassroots and sometimes at the senior level, thereby building the platform for implementation challenges. The current impasse in the European Union(EU) concerning the Treaty aimed at establishing a Constitution for Europe(TCE) is one such example that can be drawn. The need for ratification led to some Member States such as France, the Netherlands, Spain, Luxembourg and Romania organising referenda to determine their support or otherwise. The failure of the TCE to win popular support in countries such as France and the Netherlands forced a re-examination of the constitutional question and led to the emergence of the Reform Treaty as one solution to overcoming the failed European Constitution. 39 Ghana's regional integration agenda has been tested profoundly and almost in equal proportions by the factors discussed. As established already, regional integration has always been an important agenda for the country. Yet, Ghana's domestic political challenges which had a direct detrimental impact on her economic fortunes over the past five decades managed to obscure what Ghana obviously achieved in the pioneering role, which made her an obvious leader in the regional integration drive for the continent. Externally, Ghana's efforts at regional and sub-regional integration have experienced setbacks as results of what could be termed the proliferation of organisations set out to achieve the same goal. The proliferation has slowed the integration process instead of hastening it. 40 For instance, in the West Africa sub­39 http://en.wikipedia.org accessed on 26/01/09 40 Adebayo Adedeji, 2002. p. 6.