Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Africa is making advances in its policies related to visa openness promising well for cross border travel, comfort in trade movement in 2024 and further. Issued on Tuesday, the Africa Visa Openness Index 2023 discloses good progress since the seventh edition of the report was issued in December last year.
In 2023, the visa openness attained its highest score, exceeding the levels which were last seen before the pandemic hit the world. The Africa Visa Openness Index measures the range to which African countries are open to visitors from other countries in Africa.
Massive border closures over the period 2020-21 to control the spread of the virus impacted air and land travel, with extra limitations because of the screening measures, prohibitions on meetings, quarantines and similar steps, producing stagnation in last year.
This year, the data from the report shows almost 50 countries upgraded or maintained their last year score, with only 4 countries scoring less. In 2016, the first report was published, 36 countries have improved so far, their score on the index. Forty-two countries have outspread their visa-free entry policies to citizens from 5 other African countries at the minimum, as 33 countries do so to citizens of 10 countries at least.
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
