The freedom to move across borders remains a fundamental pillar of the continent’s integration agenda. Over the past year, countries’ visa policies have continued to evolve, sometimes in broad terms, but often in more nuanced and country-specific ways, for example, within the regional context, reciprocal arrangements or presumed security concerns. Sometimes, however, visa policy developments highlight a seemingly paradoxical misalignment between countries’ visa openness and support for facilitating intra-African travel in the context of a broader regional integration agenda. Yet still, countries are demonstrating reluctance and even suspicion towards committing to deeper commitments to easing the movement of persons within the continental integration agenda.
In the context of progress made over the past years, visa openness remains at a much higher level today, compared to nine years ago, when the first AVOI report was published. In 2024, notwithstanding a marginally lower overall score compared to 2023, there have been further positive developments. Some of this has involved digitisation of visa formalities, or ETAs ahead of travel. While ostensibly progressive, this has sometimes – but not always – eased travel and has impacted citizens of different countries in different ways. It is important that countries carefully consider visa policy changes in the context of whether such changes ultimately lower rather than merely shift the burden associated with intra-Africa travel.
While the AVOI tracks and measures countries’ visa policies, another important factor involves visa-related and administrative costs and overheads. African visa regimes impose vastly different information requirements on travellers ahead of travel. Visa costs can become a significant burden and indeed barrier to the movement of persons.
