Time to tear down Africa’s visa barriers

For decades, Africans have struggled to travel freely around the continent. Visas to visit fellow African states are hard to secure, costly, and limited in scope. The pan-African dream of unfettered travel between nations – let alone of arrangements allowing citizens to work and settle in other parts of Africa – remains a long way from reality.

There has been no shortage of earnest meetings to discuss the issue. The latest “strategic dialogue” between ministers was held in February on the sidelines of the Africa Union Summit in Addis Ababa. The discussions drew on the release of the Africa Visa Openness Report 2024, which found a mixed picture in the year.

Of 54 countries considered, 17 improved their visa openness score over the year; 29 countries’ scores remain unchanged; and eight countries scored lower. The net effect of the changes was a slightly lower aggregate openness score than in 2023 – a score on a par with 2022, but higher than the aggregate score in the six prior years.

Major countries failing

There is, of course, huge diversity in the performance of individual countries. Benin, Seychelles, the Gambia and Rwanda all achieved perfect scores and, encouragingly, countries with huge populations such as Nigeria and Ethiopia rank in the top 20. But major nations such as Egypt, Algeria and Kenya all rank in the bottom 10, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is ranked just one place outside it.

“In 2024, several countries have implemented visa policy changes. Some have been bold, instituting positive visa reforms which have resulted in tangible progress towards a more open continent,” the report finds.

“Other policy changes have created new impediments that undermine the ease of movement, resulting in more burdensome travel some citizens. Some of these policy changes relate to domestic or foreign policy, political, security or other concerns.”

Overall, just 28% of countries offer visa-free intraAfrican travel and just 25% offer visas on arrival for intra-African travel. For 47% of intra-Africa travel, Africans need a visa before travelling. In her foreword to the report, Joy Kategekwa, director of the Regional Integration Coordination Office at the African Development Bank, hinted that the “mixed set of findings” showed that the continent is not moving quickly enough to remove barriers.

“While some progress has been made since the inaugural edition of the Africa Visa Openness Index, we are far from where we need to be,” she writes. “That Africans continue to require visas for the most part to enter other African countries is one of the most profound contradictions to the continent’s aspirations on regional integration… Africa will not meet its development aspirations in the absence of regimes that promote mobility across the continent.”

Look to regional communities

Kategekwa says that one way to accelerate progress would be to look to Africa’s regional economic communities (RECs), which she says have pioneered a rights-based approach to movement: the right of citizens from one country in the community to enter, reside and establish themselves in another.

Indeed, in its conclusions, the report says Africa should consider regional visa systems that apply to travel within an entire REC, or at a minimum, cover travel to several REC member states. Higher levels of visa-free reciprocity can be promoted within RECs as a stepping stone to more visa openness. And excess bureaucracy can be tackled, the report says, by introducing e-visas based on secure, reliable, mobile-friendly platforms.

That should all help to incrementally extend visa-free travel policies to all African Union member states, at the very least for African Continental Free Trade-related business.

The session in Addis Ababa concluded with the announcement that a 2025 Visa-Free Roadshow will sustain advocacy and mobilise action. One hopes that the travelling policymakers will face no barriers during their trip.