Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung@ 40 in Ghana early 1990s FES supported Ghana TUC's restructuring efforts that were important for organisational renewal and for re-positioning the organisation to meet the challenges of democratization that faced Ghana after 19 years of military dictatorship. This included supporting the creation of a Parliamentary Liaison office in Ghana TUC Secretariat. In the course of this decade, support for organisational development has also given rise to a special focus by FES on youth development within the trade union movement. This has mainly taken the form of sponsorship for youth leadership training programmes that span a number of months and only accommodates persons with demonstrable commitment to contribute to the development of the trade union movement. In terms of research and policy, FES throughout the 1990s and since the beginning of 2000 has supported a number of studies on social, labour market and economic issues that have formed the basis of Ghana TUC policy intervention. Some of these issues concerned education and social security and pension reform. Beyond supporting these studies, the TUC and FES jointly organised roundtable discussions for trade union leaders to disseminate such studies and thereby helped foster the relations between university researchers and the trade unions. Furthermore, forums between Ghana TUC leaders and sub-committees of Parliament to provide the opportunities for lobbying on a range of policy issues have been organised. But also in terms of policy, one of the most consistent areas of FES partnership with Ghana TUC over the past decade and more have been the forums for engagement between trade union leaders, researchers and government and opposition political leaders on government annual budgets. The other major area of policy intervention that FES has partnered Ghana TUC to grow in is in the area of international trade, especially with regard to the Economic Partnership Agreements(EPA) between the European Union (EU) and the Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS). FES support in this area through the conduction of studies and the education and training of trade 46