For Africans, the long-running ‘Africa is a
country’ trope is less of a post-colonial irony-laden punchline and
more of a long-held aspiration. The founding leaders of various African
countries spoke of a united continent and there was a belief that as
more countries shed their colonial shackles they’d get on with the
business of creating the biggest market of the most diverse people and
cultures the world had ever seen.
It hasn’t quite worked out that way, in fact
it’s been quite the opposite. Anyone who’s ever had their African
passport disappear for an unpredictable length of time into South Africa
or Nigeria’s visa labyrinths will attest to this. Yet, we know it is still easier for European and North American passport holders to move around Africa than the holders of most African countries’ passports.
The African Union’s plan to roll out an African passport
is a laudable headline-grabbing ambition, but it will take many years
to implement across 54 countries, not to mention the attendant costs. A
more promising target is improving visa openness between African
countries.
The African Development Bank says more African countries
are helping to lead the way on improvements. The bank notes that in
2016 Africans didn’t need a visa to travel to 22% of other African
countries, which was up from 20% in 2015. While 24% of Africans could
get visas on arrival compared with 25% a year earlier. But ultimately,
more than half of all Africans (54%) need visas to travel to other
countries. That barely changed from 55% in 2015.
Thankfully, things are moving in the right direction, led in 2016 by Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia and Malawi. The hope is more countries will follow suit. Both Nigeria and South Africa, as Africa’s largest economies, are also stepping up to improve in general.
Unlike much needed long-term investments in
infrastructure and technology for development, visa openness is one of
those issues where a change in attitude by governments will bring much
quicker changes and benefits than we might realize.
This push to open up borders to each other
isn’t simply a romantic notion of African unity. For one thing, global
commodity trade markets have reminded us over the last couple of years
that African countries need to look closer to home for trade partners.
As if to drive that point home, leading international trade partners
including the United States and the United Kingdom, are looking more
inward than ever before in recent history.
There probably hasn’t been a better time to
focus on the freer movement of African people on the continent to help
drive regional integration efforts and promote the development of human
capital.