Visa-free travel for Africans: Why Kenya, Rwanda have taken step in right direction

President William Ruto of Kenya recently announced that Kenya’s borders will be open to visitors from all over Africa, visa-free, by the end of 2023.

He said: “When people can’t travel, businesses can’t travel, entrepreneurs can’t travel, we all become net losers.”

A few days later, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda followed followedsaying that all Africans could enter Rwanda without a visa.

Neither Kenya nor Rwanda will be the first. By the end of 2022, Benin, Gambia and Seychelles had already implemented a visa-free access system for all Africans. Perhaps more will follow soon. Some regions, some sub-regional groups and some bilateral agreements have also resulted in visa-free access and even passport-free access in some cases.

In the wider East African Community, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya allow cross-border travel without passports. Botswana and Namibia recently signed a similar arrangement.

Despite this progress, at the end of 2022 only 27 percent of African routes allow Africans to travel without a visa.

Actions like those in Kenya and Rwanda take the African Union’s agenda further. The regularization of the freer movement of people across African borders is one of the great development challenges of the continent. It is one of the flagship projects of the African Union Agenda 2063.

But even if all African countries no longer require visas from Africans, this does not necessarily give visitors the right to apply for a job, establish a business or build a house in the receiving country. The 2018 African Union Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons like it for full free movement, through three phases – entry, residence and establishment. This includes all economic rights, including employment. However, it has not been widely ratified.

Our new study of migration trends underlines the potential contributions of migration to economic development in countries of origin and destination. This is achieved through the transfer of skills, knowledge and remittances. The study also shows that intra-African migration is firmly rooted in geographical, social and economic ties. The movement is mainly in regions, and moderate between them.

African Union policies support freer intracontinental trade, investment and movement of people to promote the continent’s economic, social and political development. The continent has he made progress on aspects of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement dealing with trade and investment. There has not been much progress in the free movement of people. Yet the success of the trade agreement requires freer movement of people.

The conference noted that most African countries have failed to ratify the African Union Protocol on the free movement of persons. At the same time, there was evidence of improvements in policies and practices at the national, bilateral and multilateral levels that facilitate the freer movement of Africans.

Apart from the recent ones from Rwanda and Kenya, other cases will be an increasing number of announcements reciprocal agreements between countries.

The history of the African state, with strong social ties across national borders, makes regional mobility a norm rather than an exception. This can be seen from the migration routes, found mostly in the same regions and proceeding in both directions.

For example, Burkina Faso to Côte d’Ivoire is the largest migration route on the continent and in the Economic Community of West Africa (Ecowas) – the economic bloc of 15 West African states. Ivory Coast to Burkina Faso is equally popular. This trend is ubiquitous throughout the continent, except in the Southern African Development Community region, where most migrant routes tend to lead to South Africa.

Among the major regional economic communities, Ecowas has the most intense regional migration. It is followed by the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community. By contrast, Ecowas has the least interregional migration while the East African Community has the most.

Variations in development across Africa mean that some countries experience contrasting patterns, particularly in extra-continental migration. While most African migrants migrate to and from other parts of the continent, in middle-income countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria extra-continental emigration is greater.

Immigration and emigration usually occur low in low-income countries and higher in middle-income countries. In rich countries, people do not tend to emigrate. The relatively low level of migration in Africa follows this pattern.

Only 14 percent of the world’s emigrants comes from Africa. The average migrant density, or percentage of migrants living on the continent, is 1.89 percent compared to a global average of 3.6 percent where Europe and North America are at 12 percent and 16 percent respectively. African migration is therefore not only comparatively low compared to the global average, but characteristically describes low income.

High-income countries tend to have more immigrants than emigrants. The opposite is true for low-income regions. Africa in general has more emigrants than immigrants, confirming the link between migration and development.

Most migration in Africa is driven by legal restrictions or national border definitions, as well as logistical constraints. Government dictators manage to make much of this irregular migration, but they fail to stop it. Although regional integration and the liberalization of migration rules are helpful, they will not solve this challenge.

The main migrant country in Kenya is Somalia, although it is not in the same regional economic community. And despite the efforts of the Kenyan government to deter Somali migrants in Kenya. The main destination country for Nigerian emigrants in Africa is Cameroon, although it does not belong to Ecowas.

While African migration governance reforms have been made considerable progress There will still be some time until they arrive and are able to deal fairly and rationally with the reality of migration patterns in Africa.

Michael Mutava of the New South Institute wrote the report on which this article is based.