African policymakers, financiers and business leaders have intensified calls for visa-free travel across the continent, arguing that mobility not tariffs, is now the decisive factor in unlocking the full promise of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The renewed push came at a High-Level Symposium on Advancing a Visa-Free Africa for Economic Prosperity, co-convened by the African Development Bank Group and the African Union Commission on the margins of the 39th African Union Summit of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa.
The message was blunt. Africa cannot build integrated markets, regional value chains or globally competitive enterprises if its entrepreneurs remain constrained by restrictive visa regimes.
Mobility as the Missing Link
AfCFTA, which brings together 54 countries into a $3.4 trillion market of 1.3 billion people, is steadily lowering tariffs on goods. Yet participants argued that trade in services from fintech and logistics to consulting, creative industries and health depends fundamentally on the free movement of people.
“The evidence is clear. The economics support openness. The human story demands it,” said Alex Mubiru, Director General for Eastern Africa at the African Development Bank Group, urging governments to shift from incremental adjustments to transformative change.
For Africa’s entrepreneurs, the implications are immediate. Start-ups seeking to scale across borders still face costly visa applications, delays and uncertainty. Investors conducting due diligence encounter administrative friction. Skilled professionals struggle to deploy expertise regionally.
In effect, Africa has built a trade architecture without fully enabling the human mobility required to power it.
Visa Openness and the Entrepreneurial Multiplier
Participants framed visa liberalisation as a practical enabler of enterprise, innovation and job creation. Mubiru highlighted visa-free travel, interoperable digital systems and integrated markets as tangible mechanisms to convert policy commitments into economic activity.
Amma A. Twum-Amoah, Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development at the African Union Commission, described visa openness as a strategic lever for deepening regional markets and strengthening collective responses to economic and humanitarian shocks.
For African-led businesses, especially SMEs that form over 80% of employment across the continent, streamlined movement could dramatically reduce expansion costs. Services sectors already among the fastest-growing contributors to GDP in many African economies stand to benefit disproportionately.
The latest Africa Visa Openness Index, reviewed at the symposium, underscores the scale of the challenge. More than half of intra-African travel still requires visas before departure. Participants characterised this as a significant drag on intra-continental commerce.
Agenda 2063 and Political Will
Former AU Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma reiterated that free movement is central to the African Union’s long-term blueprint, Agenda 2063.
“If we accept that we are Africans, then we must be able to move freely across our continent,” she said, pressing member states to operationalise the African Passport and the Free Movement of Persons Protocol.
The protocol, though adopted in 2018, remains under-ratified limiting its practical effect. Advocates argue that without political acceleration, AfCFTA risks underperforming relative to its transformative ambition.
Aviation, Connectivity and SAATM
Business leaders stressed that visa reform must move in parallel with aviation liberalisation.
Mesfin Bekele, Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines, called for full implementation of the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM), warning that connectivity and visa policy cannot operate in isolation.
Seamless travel, he argued, requires coordinated reforms from air rights to border processes to enable efficient intra-African movement of business travellers, investors and skilled workers.
Regional representatives echoed this, including Elias Magosi, Executive Secretary of the Southern Africa Development Community, who emphasised trust-building through modern border management and digital information-sharing systems.
Ghana’s Early Dividend
Ghana’s Trade and Industry Minister, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, pointed to her country’s experience as an early adopter of open visa policies for African travellers. She cited increased business travel, tourism and investor interest as early dividends of openness.
For entrepreneurs, such policies can translate into faster deal cycles, stronger cross-border partnerships and access to larger consumer bases, particularly in fast-growing sectors such as fintech, agribusiness, renewable energy and digital services.
With Africa’s urban population expected to double by 2050 and digital adoption accelerating, the capacity for start-ups to operate continent-wide could determine whether African firms dominate their own markets or cede ground to global competitors.
Civil Society and Private Sector Pressure
Gabby Otchere Darko, Executive Chairman of the Africa Prosperity Network, urged governments to back the “Make Africa Borderless Now” campaign, while tourism advocate Ras Mubarak called for increased ratifications of the AU Free Movement Protocol.
Participants concluded that achieving visa-free travel will require aligning migration frameworks, digital identity systems and border infrastructure alongside sustained political commitment.
In a symbolic gesture, attendees signed a “passport wall,” signalling support for accelerated reforms.
A Competitive Imperative
The African Development Bank Group and the African Union Commission pledged continued collaboration with member states and regional bodies to advance coordinated mobility strategies.
For African entrepreneurship, the stakes extend beyond convenience. In a global economy increasingly defined by regional blocs, supply chain realignment and digital services trade, mobility is a competitive variable.
AfCFTA has created the legal foundation for a single market. Visa liberalisation may determine whether African entrepreneurs can truly access it.
Without freer movement, integration risks remaining theoretical. With it, Africa’s founders, innovators and investors could finally scale at continental speed.
