Sunyani (B/A) March 27, GNA - The Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) will organise the first-ever international durbar for three of the 15 member-countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), in Bolgatanga, in May, this year. Dr. Yakubu Zakaria, Director of Programmes of the Centre, announced this at a two-day capacity building workshop on the role of non-state actors in the regional integration process, at Abesim near Sunyani on Friday.

He said participants would come from Burkina-Faso, Nigeria and Ghana and ECOWAS' main agenda of promoting cooperation and integration towards the establishment of an economic union to raise the living standards of people of West Africa, would be discussed. Dr Zakaria said officials from ECOWAS headquarters at Lagos, as well as some Ghanaian dignitaries were expected to attend the durbar adding that some local drama troupes would not be left out of the programme.

The two-day workshop was basically geared towards the realization of a better Customs Union and Common Market operations in West Africa. Forty-Four participants for the workshop were selected from Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo Regions with 11 of them females and 33 males. It was organised by ISODEC in collaboration with Brong-Ahafo Network of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (BANGO), as part of its implementation project on non-state actors on issues of regional integration.