Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 155 What are the prospects? The lessons from the on-going campaign against the EPA confirm the need for more vigilance on the part of civil society organisations and trade unions for that matter. 171 The growing impetus of international working class solidarity for integration efforts is just warming up. The greater challenges relate to getting the people involved, creating the psychological pre-requisites for free movement of people, for harmonisation of labour policies and for harmonisation of other policies. There is also the need to deal with the danger of some losing out as a result of the development of the integration process through the institution of compensation mechanisms. Organised labour must contribute to promoting political democracy as a necessary condition for taking forward the integration agenda. The emerging unity of trade unions on the African continent following the merger of the ICFTU and the WCL and the emergence of the ITUC heightens the prospects further. Meanwhile, OATUU continues to enjoy the recognition of the AU and ECOWAS as a trade union framework which is independent of trade unions outside the African continent and hence better placed to represent working people in structures of the regional and sub-regional institutions. For example, trade union leaders holding positions in OATUU are among those elected into the Pan-African Parliament and the Economic, Social and Cultural Council(ECOSOC). Again OATUU members continue to be very active in the Tripartite Labour and Social Affairs Commission of the African Union. 172 It is significant that among the priority concerns of OATUU in the 2004 – 2008 Quadrennial are international trade and Africa's economic integration. From the standpoint of organised labour, labour mobility should enable people to move from low productivity areas to areas where they will be more productive thus benefiting economic operators as well as the community as a whole. The prospect, however, can best be realised with the harmonisation of labour legislation, a process which trade unions are yet to begin driving. Meanwhile, there are other regional integration programmes that suggest that integration could chalk more significant successes in the sub region. In this connection, there are emerging ECOWAS-wide programmes whose formulation and implementation civil society organisations and trade unions in particular should engage on and influence. These include common policies for agriculture, with the 171 Ofei-Nkansah, K.: The West African Trade Union Organisations and the issue of regional integration – Challenges and Responsibilities,(Paper presented at the 10 th Meeting of the Sub-Regional Working Group on Trade and Development, Accra, 2008) 172 OATUU: Report of Activities of the Executive Committee, 2004 – 2008,(Accra, OATUU Secretariat, 2008)