Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 193 each of Africa's regions, supported by civilian police(CIVPOL) and other capacities. 232 B. EUROPEAN UNION(EU) The European Union's role in complementing the regional integration agenda in West Africa is largely governed by the premise that the national economies in West African States, including Ghana's, but excluding from Nigeria's, are too small to achieve significant levels of economic growth on their own; rather the disparate economies need to spur growth through increased trade and investment. Indeed the EU has been a long-standing advocate of regional integration in Africa and an important source of financing and technical support for regional schemes. The EU's policy toward regional integration was first revealed in the Lome IV Agreement(1991-95) with the allocation of 10% of the European Development Fund to regional activities, and ECU 228 million for regional co-operation and integration activities in West Africa. 233 EU's development co-operation policy was carried further in the Cotonou Partnership Agreement(CPA) signed on 23 June 2000 between the Members of the African, Carribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP)(which includes West African States) and the European Community and its Member States. As provided in the Agreement, the partnership is based on three complementary pillars, namely, development co-operation, economic and trade co­operation and the political dimension. The partnership is centred on the objective of reducing and eventually eradicating poverty consistent with the objectives of sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP countries in the world economy(Article 1 of the Agreement). Even more important in the present context, it is under the CPA that negotiations have commenced with a view to the new arrangement titled“Economic Partnership Agreement”(EPA). The EPA seeks to establish a new framework on which the relationship between the ACP countries and the EU shall be based. 234 In particular, one key opportunity the negotiating structure of the EPA provides for the ECOWAS, it has been observed“is the deepening of its integration process, which the sub­regional group has struggled to perfect in the past year”. 235 The importance of the EPA to West African States may also be gauged from the fact that trade within the ECOWAS remains very low and that the agreements to be concluded open 232 For discussion of the ASF, Gen. Marko d. Chiziko,“The Responsibility to Protect: Does the African Stand-By Force Need a Doctrine for Protection of Civilians”. www.americanstudents.us/IJHRL2/Articles/Journal_IJHRL_2007_Chiziko_online.pdf­233 See Real Lavergne and Cyril Daddieh,“Donor Perspectives”, sourced: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-68357-201-1­DO_TOPIC.html 10/1/2008. 234 See Stevens C, and J. Keenan(March 2005), Preparing for Economic Partnership Agreements: Institute of Development Studies. See also the various articles in The European Development Fund and the Economic Partnership Agreements, Commonwealth Secretariat, November 2006. 235 Olumuyiwa B. Alaba,“EU_ECOWAS EPA: Regional Integration, Trade Facilitation and Development in West Africa”, available http://www.gtap.agecon,purdue.edu/resources/download/2599.pdf sourced 2 March 2009.