Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 93 from decision-making in key social and economic institutions. Such conscious or unconscious marginalisation of the youth has as expected, spawned youth apathy and alienation and in most cases simultaneously given rise to substitute youth mores which provide self-esteem, social standing and income, but are often associated with negative consequences such as illiteracy, drugs and violence. The extent to which youth organisations contribute to the processes of regional integration may be viewed within the prism of formal and informal structures. The formal structures refer to carefully laid out policies and platforms within which the youth or youth organisations are specifically expected to act or play roles and the specific roles required even as they are laid out in the structures. The informal, however, relates to less official or colloquial avenues and platforms generated sometimes by youth organisations through sports and other means and by which their activities affect positively or negatively, the process of regional integration. As regards the formal sphere, within the framework of ECOWAS, there is a Department responsible for Youth and Sports, situated within the Office of the Commissioner for Human Development and Gender. From the 10 to 16 August of 2003, the Department organised a forum dubbed“First ECOWAS Youth Forum” in Abuja, Nigeria. A critical observation of the date of the forum as well as its title indicates that since the setting up of the sub-regional body, virtually nothing has been done, from a formal perspective, to create a platform for the youth to make inputs into the integration process. The forum itself was aimed at providing youth drawn from West Africa as well as other Regional Economic Communities with“an opportunity to dialogue, interact, share experiences and lessons that would develop their capacities as they yearn to contribute effectively to the economic, social and cultural integration of the region”. 117 The event created a platform observers widely considered as vital in aiding the youth to assert their role as major stakeholders in the development of the sub-region in particular and the continent as a whole. Consequently, the communiqué adopted at the end of the forum, which basically recommended that the youth forum be made an annual event, has served as a justification for the activities of the Department for Youth and Sports. The above recommendations reflect similar recommendations arrived at after the Cotonou meeting of Ministers in Charge of Youth and Sports of ECOWAS Member States, held in 2008.. The recommendations were inter alia; the organisation of the ECOWAS Games in the months of July/August 2009 in Benin, the setting up of an ad hoc Committee to reflect on the ideal relationships between States and national and international sports federations, the profitable returns on national sports infrastructure and a fiscal incentive policy for the private sector to promote youth employment and the financing of sports. 117 http://www.comm.ecowas.int/dept/stand.php?id=e_e2_brief&lang=en