By Kemo Cham
This week Rwanda is hosting the African Union heads of state summit. Among the items on the agenda at the 27 AU Summit is the much talked about dream of full integration. A key event is the launch of the AU’s e-passport [electronic passport]. This initiative falls under the AU’s Agenda 2063, which specifically aims at facilitating free movement of persons, goods and services within the continent, with the overall goal of fostering intra-Africa trade, integration and socio-economic development.
One of the major obstacles to development on the continent is the slow pace of integration. And entry visas are a major component of this puzzle. Introducing a common passport will therefore enhance the prospect of this happening sooner.
The AU has a goal of abolishing visa requirements for Africans traveling within the continent by 2018. But two years to this deadline, only one country, Seychelles, has fully implemented the policy.
Rwanda recently announced a plan towards this dream. Reports indicate that the eastern African country planned to scrap visa entry requirements for African travelers by 2018.
Mauritius and Ghana have also been credited for taking the lead in ensuring easier intra-Africa trade by relaxing visa restrictions and in some cases lifting visa requirements altogether. Ghana was due to commence implementing a policy that allows Africans to get visa on arrival last Friday, according to reports.
Rwanda currently stands out on the continent for many other reasons, notably for its stride in revolutionizing telecommunications, which experts have credited, in part, for the country’s rapid infrastructure and economic development. Its strive for a visa-free policy also holds a lot of lessons.
Visa-free policy will not only encourage inflow of investors, it will also encourage intra-Africa tourism. Tourism within the continent is among the least developed in the world. The average African traveler needs visas to visit 55% of other countries on the continent, according to the Africa Visa Openness Index (AVOI) report 2016.
The AVOI measures how open African countries are in terms of visa requirements: whether other citizens are allowed to travel to another country without a visa, if travelers can get a visa on arrival in the country, or if visitors need to get a visa before they travel. The report shows that Africans can get visas on arrival in only 25% of other countries and don’t need a visa to travel to just 20% of other countries on the continent.
Comparisons at the global level show that North Americans have easier travel access to the continent than Africans themselves. North Americans require a visa to travel to 45% of African countries, can get visas on arrival in 35% of African countries and don’t need a visa in 20% of African countries.
First of its kind
The first of its kind, the report by the African Development Bank (AfDB) released in February 2016 revealed that only 13 out of 55 countries had African-friendly visa policies on the continent. Sierra Leone which, alongside Lesotho and Liberia, ranks 32, is not one of them.
75% of countries in the top 20 most visa-open countries are in West Africa or East Africa, according to the report. Only one is in North Africa and there are none in Central Africa.
Integration is tied to visa-free movement. And regional integration, experts have severally agued, is the key to development because it links economies and accelerate their growth.
“Free movement by people is the hallmark of regional economic integration, facilitating trade and economic growth across the continent,” proclaims the AfDB’s Regional Integration Policy and Strategy 2014/2023.
It adds: “Free movement of people impacts considerable economic benefits of both temporary and long term to the economies in the region.
In addition to traditional sectors such as tourism, immigrants increase economic efficiency by filling gaps in low- and high-skilled labour markets and increase economic efficiency by reducing labour shortages.
Immigrants also remit considerable amount of money to support livelihoods and investments in their countries.”
The findings of the AVOI, which was developed in partnership with McKinsey & Company and the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Agenda Council on Africa, was presented and discussed at the Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan on 21-22 March 2016.
“Opening up a country’s visa regime is a quick-win on development that remains untapped,” said Moono Mupotola, Director of NEPAD, Regional Integration and Trade at the African Development Bank, at that occasion.
“Visa openness promotes talent mobility and business opportunities. Africa’s leaders and policymakers have a key role to play in helping Africans to move freely in support of Agenda 2063’s call to abolish visa requirements for all Africans by 2018,” she added in an address to some of the continent’s top CEOs.
The report also shows that Africa’s Middle Income Countries have low visa-openness scores overall, while the continent’s smaller, landlocked and island states are more open.
“For Africa to fully integrate, countries should abolish the visa requirements to allow easy, free movement of people, goods and labour across the continent,” Stephen Karingi, UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) director for regional integration and trade division, said at the inaugural launch of the Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII) during the Africa Development Week in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa later in April.
“As countries grow in innovation capacities, they are likely to integrate even more with each other through investment, supply chains, trade, knowledge and mobility,” he said.
Hope and progress
“When we started this work, only 5 African countries offered liberal access to all Africans; this number has grown to 13 over the past three years. We are making progress, but need to accelerate the pace” said Acha Leke, Director of McKinsey & Company and member of the WEF Global Agenda Council on Africa.
There is however very little hope among experts as to the possibility of countries meeting the deadline. The reasons for this vary from country to country. But a major factor is the fear that individual countries stand to lose much needed revenue collected through visa fees.
There is also the issue of high unemployment rates in some African countries which means that they will be reluctant to avoid increased competition for what little job they have on offer for their citizens. Recently in South Africa and Zambian, the world witnessed deadly xenophobic attacks against fellow Africans seen as “stealing” jobs of indigenes.
There are also the twin issues of insecurity and terrorism.
But, insists the AfDB, regional integration matters. It said integration is a development priority for the continent.
In its AVOI report, the Bank argues that integration is multi-dimensional for both Regional Economic Countries and for the countries within each Regional Economic Community [REC]. The findings revealed that the growth of a country’s economy is linked to its level of integration with the region.
Africa has eight regional economic blocs. They are Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS), Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Comesa, EAC and IGAD.
The top performing countries on regional integration were considered ‘deeply integrated,’ with economies that are strongly integrated with others in the Regional Economic Communities [RECs]. These countries feature in the top four performers in a REC that has more than six member countries or they feature in the top two performers in a REC that has less than six member countries.
28 top performing countries across the eight RECs on regional integration overall were considered ‘deeply integrated.’ These were the top four countries in CEN-SAD, COMESA, ECCAS, ECOWAS, IGAD and SADC and the top two countries in EAC and UMA.
The ARII was designed to measure the extent to which each country in Africa was meeting its commitments under the various pan-African integration frameworks, such as Agenda 2063 and the Abuja Treaty.
The index, which is a joint project of the AfDBank, the African Union Commission and the Economic Commission for Africa, covers the following dimensions: free movement of persons, trade integration, productive integration, regional interconnections and infrastructure, and macroeconomic policy convergence.
According to the index, Rwanda was ranked among the “deeply integrated” countries in the categories that included free movement of persons, financial integration, and macroeconomic policy convergence.
Other categories of the index are trade integration, productive integration, and infrastructure.
The five-member East African Community (EAC) was cited as the most integrated regional bloc. South Sudan was admitted to the bloc as its sixth member in March.
Sierra Leone, considered a low performer – scores below the average of countries. The top four in ECOWAS are Ivory Coast, Togo, Senegal, and Niger. The bottom four, from below, are Guinea, Liberia Sierra Leone, and Cape Verde.
Some of the few surprises are that even restive Guinea Bissua is more integrated than Sierra Leone. Ghana, considered well advanced in the sub-region, is placed at sixth, below Benin, Niger, and Togo. And regional superpower, Nigeria, is placed at ninth, below average, below countries like Mali and Burkina Faso.
© Politico 12/07/16
