Accra, June 30, GNA - Ghana is to benefit from a 6.5 million euro Regional Programme to fight drug trafficking in the country. Other countries to benefit from the programme, which begins this year, include Senegal, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and Togo. The European Commission is to fund the three-year programme. Ms Daria Fane, Deputy Secretary at the Head of Governance Section of the European Union (EU), disclosed this on Tuesday at a stakeholders' workshop, held in Accra on the 2008 Annual Report of the Union's sponsorship programmes.

An additional two million euros have been earmarked to effectively manage the challenge of migration in the country, she said. Ms Fane said the EU was committed to support Ghana in the fight against rural-urban migration.

She said the EU had identified a decentralisation policy framework in governance as complementary in development and called for project support for capacity building at local and central levels. Referring to Article 31 of the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) and the EU policy, which call for development co-operation as well as encouraging gender equality, Ms Fane said there was the need to support civil society groups to integrate gender equality in their programmes for development.

Mr. Dick Naezer, Counsellor, Head of Macro-Economic and Trade Section of the EU, called on stakeholders to see the European Partnership Agreement (EPA) as a tool for development and for the promotion of regional economic integration. "The trade agreements aim at facilitating the successful integration of ACP countries in the global economy and the multilateral trading system," he said.

Mr. Naezer called on government to sign the Interim EPA, which the country committed itself to, but failed to sign in 2007. The agreement will secure access for Ghanaian exports to EU markets and remove the risk of trade disruption. It also allowed 100 per cent free access to the EU market as of January last year with transition periods for rice and sugar.