African Ministers Hold Strategic Dialogue On Visa-Free Movement To Propel Regional Integration

African leaders, on the sidelines of the 38th African Union Sum­mit, discussed obstacles to the continent’s economic integration, underscoring visa-free movement to reduce illegal migration and strengthen official travel channels.

The high-level dialogue, con­vened by the African Develop­ment Bank Group and the African Union Commission alongside the AU Summit, brought together trade ministers and business leaders who pointed to Rwanda’s experience as evidence that open borders enhance, rather than com­promise, security.

African Development Bank Group Vice President for Re­gional Development, Integration and Business Delivery Nnenna Nwabufo, expressed the Bank’s continued commitment to sup­porting the acceleration of vi­sa-free movement across the continent.

“We do it for its promise to transform Africa and to create prosperity,” she noted. “In fact, the goals of our new Ten‑Year Strate­gy (2024–2033) are designed around seizing Africa’s opportunities for a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and integrated continent.”

Albert Muchanga, Commis­sioner for Economic Develop­ment, Trade, Tourism, Industry and Minerals at the African Union Commission, in his keynote ad­dress, outlined four priority areas to open up the continent.

They include liberalizing the movement of categories of peo­ple critical for trade in goods and services, implementing the Stra­tegic Framework on Key Actions to Achieve Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development in Af­rica, advancing to the next stage of African economic integration, particularly the African Common market, as envisaged under the 1991 Abuja Treaty, and establish­ing the appropriate facilitation measures, whether soft or hard infrastructure, to facilitate free movement of persons.

Commissioner Muchanga stressed the need to make more progress on some continental projects, such as the trans-Afri­can highways (Cairo to Cape and Dakar to Mombasa), to facilitate free movement of persons.

Presenting the “State of play in visa-free movement in Africa,” which featured findings from the latest edition of the AfricaVisa Openness Index, AVOI, Principal Regional Integration Coordina­tor at the African Development Bank’s Regional Integration Coor­dination Office, Ometere Omolua­bi-Davies, highlighted the progress made by some countries regard­ing opening up their borders for Africans.

The presentation reported that 39 African countries have improved their scores since 2016, indicating that visa openness across Africa is at its highest level since the inception of the index. Despite this inspiring trajectory, it was observed that there is still much room for progress to facili­tate the unrestricted mobility of Africans within the continent.

Rwanda Minister of Trade and Industry Prudence Sebahizi shared his country’s experience and economic gains from imple­menting a visa-free regime.

“Rwanda does not agree with the usual excuse of security threats that accompany visa-free discussions because what is im­portant is to invest in the systems, security, governance, monitoring,” he declared.

“In the end, people who travel for tourism and business will al­ways use the official channels such as the borders and airports. This means the policy itself cannot contribute to security concerns but rather solve the issue of smug­gling and illegal migration.”