The chief of a non-governmental organization has appealed to the media to galvanise ECOWAS citizens into pushing their governments towards faster integration of the sub-region. “The new vision, which seeks to move ECOWAS from an ECOWAS of States to an ECOWAS of People, requires the involvement and full participation of civil society groups and stakeholders, especially the Media,” Mr Sam Dodoo, Executive Director of “Media Response” said on Tuesday at a workshop for journalists. The workshop was in collaboration with the ECOWAS Commission and the European Union. The NGO aims at promoting socio-economic development through advocacy, communication and social mobilization, gave the exhortation at a workshop for Journalists in the Volta region in Ho. Mr Dodoo said the media in Ghana seemed to have stayed aloof from the regional integration process due perhaps to lack of information. He said it was for this reason that the ECOWAS Commission had established an ECOWAS Unit within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where journalists could obtain information. He urged the Media to make ECOWAS Integration an election issue to push political parties to commit to it. He said individual ECOWAS citizens, institutions and the business community stood to gain tremendously from integration which should not be delayed any further. The participants called for the decentralization of the ECOWAS Unit to the Regions and Districts to be easily accessible to the media outside Accra. Source: GNA