Member states: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo
Human mobility features highly in ECOWAS. Six member states of ECOWAS rank within the top 10 on the AVOI, and a further two in the top 20. The region’s progressive stance towards free movement of persons often reaches beyond the regional market: ECOWAS scores highest both in terms of being the region with the highest average visa openness generally, and the highest reciprocal visa-free access with respect to intra-REC movement. Benin (since 2018) and The Gambia (since 2020) are in joint first place on the index. Several countries have made changes to their visa policies over the past year. Ghana, Cabo Verde, Guinea and Sierra Leone have advanced their score, with Sierra Leone making significant strides towards visa openness: citizens of 37 African countries can now obtain a visa on arrival, having previously been required to obtain a visa ahead of travel. Mali and Senegal have seen a slight decline in their scores, while the rankings of Burkina Faso and Togo have declined by 11 and 29 places respectively. This follows Burkina Faso’s decision to remove visa-on-arrival privileges from all 11 countries that had previously qualified for this, with Togo abolishing visa-on-arrival, replacing it with e-visa requirements. In terms of the AVOI methodology, this is counted as a visa-ahead-of-travel, even though it is notable that a well-functioning e-visa process can offer benefits to travellers. The region’s average score remains impressive, and the highest among Africa’s eight RECs.
ECOWAS continues to boast a near-perfect score with respect to regional visa-free reciprocity. This now stands at 99%, a further improvement from 2023 (97%).
Only Cabo Verde and Guinea Bissau, the sixth and eighth ranked countries on the 2024 AVOI, do not fully reciprocate visa-free access to each other’s nationals – Guinea Bissau requires a visa on arrival from nationals of Cabo Verde. While ECOWAS maintains a very high score, lingering uncertainty around the future status of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger remains. Informal mobility may continue notwithstanding any developments, but the dynamics will impact the situation on the ground, where political and security-related uncertainty may affect border openings and impede the ability of nationals of ECOWAS Member States to travel freely within the region.
