The journey towards ease of travel around Africa is gradually becoming a reality with Rwanda announcing visa-free entry for fellow African states.
Data obtained from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa reveal that President Paul Kagame made the announcement in the capital city of Rwanda, Kigali. There, he promoted Africa’s potential as “a unified tourism destination” for a continent that still receives 60% of its visitors from outside of the continent.
“Any African, can get on a plane to Rwanda whenever they wish and they will not pay a thing to enter our country” the Rwandan president stated at the 23rd Global Summit of the World Travel and Tourism Council.
“We should not lose sight of our own continental market. Africans are the future of global tourism as our middle class continues to grow at a fast pace in the decades to come,” he added.
On Monday, the President of Kenya, President William Ruto declared that there will be an end to visa requirements for all African visitors by the end of the year.
The development has been widely praised as Kenya became the fourth African nation to scrap visas for African nationals after Seychelles, The Gambia and Benin.
Unrestricted travel for Africans within the continent has been an objective of the African Union (AU) for the past decade.
Speaking at an international conference recently, Ruto said, “It is time we…realise that having visa restrictions amongst ourselves is working against us.”
However, according to Africa’s Visa Openness Index – which measures the extent to which each country in Africa is open to visitors from other African countries – most countries are making progress towards simplifying entry processes and dropping restrictions to some other nations.
In 2022, Kenya was ranked 31st on the index out of 54 states, but Ruto told an audience in Congo-Brazzaville that visa restriction was bad for business on the continent.
“When people cannot travel, businesspeople cannot travel, entrepreneurs cannot travel, we all become net losers.
“Let me say this, As Kenya, by the end of this year, no African will be required to have a visa to come to Kenya,” he said to loud cheers from the conference delegates.
“Our children from this continent should not be locked in borders in Europe and also be locked in borders in Africa.”
He was speaking at a summit aimed at protecting some of the world’s largest rainforests.
The AU launched its African passport in 2016. The idea behind the passport is for all African citizens to be able to travel throughout the continent without visas – but it is still not widely available.
This is in part because of concerns about security, smuggling and the impact on the local employment markets.
If dropping all visa restrictions is currently a step too far, the Visa Openness Index report recommends a number of other measures. These include lowering fees, making visa-on-arrival standards for African visitors and implementing a secure e-visa system.
The African Union introduced the African passport in 2016, promising to “unleash the potential of the continent” in a manner comparable to that of the European Union. However, up until now, the travel document has only been granted to diplomats and AU officials.
According to the African Union’s website, the African Passport and free movement of people are intended to “remove restrictions on Africans ability to travel, work, and live within their own continent.”
The African Union also established the African Continental Free Trade Area, a free trade area spanning the whole continent with an estimated value of $3.4 trillion. Its goals are to promote economic growth and provide a single, united market for the 1.3 billion people living on the continent.
Reports from Africa.businessinsider/Vanguard
