Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 157 CHAPTER NINE: FACILITATING REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN WEST AFRICA: THE ROLE OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN GHANA Linda Darkwa* ABSTRACT Efforts at regional integration in the West African sub-region date back to the immediate post colonial days. Right after independence, countries in the sub-region experimented with different forms of collaboration aimed at fostering and enhancing sub-regional integration. However, sub-regional integration efforts in West Africa have since conception, been conceptualised through the lens of trade, with very little or no efforts at other areas of interaction in the sub-region. Yet, most of the trade in West Africa is between Member States and countries in the North. Thus, although some modest achievements have been made in the sub-regional integration efforts through the vehicle of trade, a lot remains undone. Provisions in the Protocols promoting integration and the reality in many Member States are often at variance because of a number of issues such as a lack of understanding of the Protocols and how they are expected to work; lack of a properly trained workforce at both the policy and implementation levels and the over-reliance on politicians rather than the citizens within Member States, to push the agenda. The chapter asserts that the regional integration project would fail to achieve its objectives if it continues in this way and submits that educational institutions in Ghana can play a pivotal role in steering the sub-regional integration agenda forward. It identifies a number of ways, some of which already exist but are not beneficial to the objectives of integration in the sub-region because of a lack of structure and coordination. It concludes that educational institutions in Ghana can make the ideals of sub-regional integration a part of the value system of the people through both formal and informal education by devising creative and innovative ways to meet the goals of sub-regional integration. *Dr. Linda Darkwa is a Researcher at Legon Centre for International Affairs, University of Ghana, Legon