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to assure their sustainability. Additionally, three countries, BurkinaFaso, Mali and Niger are landlocked and therefore face high transportcosts and difficulties that are unique to the fifteen landlockedcountries in Africa, which can be resolved through improved regionalcooperation or integration.Against this background, there is the need for us to have a continuousdialogue and debate, at the regional, sub-regional and national levels,on how we place regional integration as the centre piece of our economicand social development. A forum such as this retreat, which allowsfor effective exchange of ideas on regional integration betweenkey policymakers, should be replicated at all levels of our society andshould be broadened to include all the key stakeholders, particularlythe private sector and civil society organizations.Commendable progress has been made by ECOWAS over the years.For instance, since 1990, it has established a vibrant free trade zonewhich is supported by programmes of trade facilitation, including auniform and simplified customs declaration form and a common statisticalnomenclature, which is in line with the World Customs Organization(WCO) harmonised system. It has also introduced programmesthat seek to strengthen and develop the infrastructure in the sub-region,particularly the areas of telecommunication, roads and energy.Despite the progress made, there are a number of challenges, includingthe low level of intra-ECOWAS trade, poverty, monetary integrationand the movement of people. Intra-regional trade in West Africais still low, representing on average around 10 per cent of total exports.There are many factors assigned for the low intra-communitytrade, including the economic structure of the Member States, whichconstrains the supply of diversified products; poor institutional policies;weak infrastructure; weak financial and capital markets and failureto implement trade protocols.Although the trade performance of ECOWAS matches that of otherAfrican RECs, it is extremely low compared to other trading blocsoutside our continent. For example, trade within the Associationof South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) accounts for about 60 percentof their total export. The same is true for the countries of the LatinAmerican Free Trade Agreement (ALENA) area, whose intra-regionaltrade accounted for 56 per cent of total exports. It is no wonder that88 Part Two