Even the visa-free regime is not yet working for them.
“By 2063, Africa must be united”: says the “Agenda 2063” — the key document for long-term planning of the African Union (AU). In 2018, the Protocol on Free Movement was adopted at the continental level; recently, African countries have seen increasing relaxations in migration laws. A recent example is the cancellation of visa fees for Africans in Burkina Faso.
The “Agenda 2063” is a declarative document, but in reality, migration processes in Africa are controlled by a large set of national, regional, and continental legal acts. Many key decisions are made at the level of regional unions: for instance, in 1979 — 39 years before a similar document appeared at the African Union — ECOWAS adopted a regional Protocol on Free Movement. The first stage of implementation was the abolition of visas between West African countries.
In 2024, Kenya announced its intention to establish a visa-free regime with African countries except for Libya and Somalia. Instead of a visa, arriving Africans were now required to have an eTA (Electronic Travel Authorization). The idea was that the simplified digital procedure would help obtain the necessary documents more quickly. The eTA system was implemented in the same year. However, the African press reacted critically to such decisions, noting that due to the eTA, Kenya dropped 17 positions in the African openness ranking, landing a “honorable” 46th place out of 54. Why?
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Confusion with existing visa-free regimes. Citizens of countries with which Kenya already had agreements, such as South Africa and Angola, faced new bureaucratic difficulties.
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Delays in processing eTA. The uncertainty faced by visitors received sharp criticism from participants in business conferences and sporting events.
In January 2025, the Kenyan government approved the abolition of the eTA for Africans, proposing a visa-free regime as an alternative. Kenya's experience reignited the discussion on the international stage, particularly at the highest levels. Thus, the African Development Bank and the African Union Commission launched a campaign to promote free movement within the continent. The program is aimed at working with policymakers, so there have been few public mentions of it since February 2025. As of May 30, 2025, a visa-free regime officially came into effect in Kenya for residents of African countries, except for Libya and Somalia.
It is difficult to say definitively whether Africa can “overcome borders”: every ambitious project faces challenges — economic, political, bureaucratic — and forecasting is complicated.
