Feature: Africa passport, a push toward continent integration

The African Union summit in Kigali has launched a common electronic passport granting visa-free travel to citizens of all its 54 member-states, one of the organization's long-term goals of deeper integration of the continent.

The passport was first issued to heads of state and senior officials at the AU's summit in Kigali, Rwanda, last Sunday, with the Union hoping to provide passports to all African citizens by 2020.

The AU's efforts to create a common passport, is in line with the organization's mission dating back to its precursor Organization of African Unity.

It comes in the wake of Africa Visa Openness report by the African Development Bank released in March, indicating that visa policies and regimes have made it difficult for Africans to travel across the continent.

While European or American passport holders, for example, travel easily across the continent, Africans find it harder to travel to 55 percent of the African countries.

A sense of Pan-Africanism is therefore mirrored in the common passport.

"Indeed, we are optimistic because, even if we are still at the very early stages of a complex process, holding a single African passport will mean that our African leaders' aspirations to see their citizens travel throughout the continent without being confronted to the usual administrative constraints, are attainable," Moono Mupotola, the Director of the NEPAD, Regional Integration and Trade Department at the African Development Bank wrote in an opinion piece published in Rwandan media on Wednesday.

Meeting these aspirations is critical if we want to achieve our vision of an integrated economic space where opportunities are shared among the people of Africa, she says.

She notes that it will facilitate labour mobility, highly beneficial and can help fill Africa's labour needs in the education, health and industrial sectors.

The AfDB survey indicated that on average, Africans currently require visas to travel to 55 per cent of other African countries and can get visas on arrival in only 25 percent of other countries.

Rwanda has seen a 22 percent increase of African tourism and business travellers since 2013 when it allowed Africans to obtain visas on arrival, according to government officials.

In a statement ahead of the launch, the African Union said this flagship project has the specific aim of facilitating free movement of persons, goods and services around the continent in order to foster intra-Africa trade, integration and socio-economic development.

The visa-free move builds on one by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which has been offering visa-free travel to citizens of its member states of Senegal, Liberia, Mali, and Nigeria.

Passports are also highlighted as key part of the AU's Agenda 2063 plan, which aims to create a common trading market for its member states.

However, the implementation of the common passports for all African citizens might not come easily as thought.

The newly launched African passport is a good initiative in the first place, but for it to function, there is need for more concrete measures by member states of the AU, said Eloge Agani a technical adviser to the Benin President who was in Kigali.

Agani cited notable priorities which are required such as removal of visas for Africans travelling across the continent, concurring with the AfDB report that some countries up to now still make it difficult for Africans to visit.

Flexibility from member states will make this initiative successful, he said.

Rwanda's Foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo reiterated that the highlight of the summit was the launch of the pan-African passport which 'talks to the necessity of us to be integrated.'

"It was a desire for us to travel without hindrances, and to take care of the interest of African people... What brings us together as a unified continent," she told journalists on Tuesday.

During the summit, at least 35 Heads of State, present, a dozen of Vice presidents, 52 ministers of Foreign affairs, AU commissioners, some government official and diplomats received the first copies of the diplomatic African passports.

Countries are expected to adopt and popularize the Pan-African passport within their policies and citizens.

The AU sought to make a common standard for electronic passports, with individual member states still expected to work out how individual citizens will eventually receive the visa-free travel document.

Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, urged Heads of State to create the necessary conditions for member states to issue the passport to their citizens, within their national policies as and when they are ready.

Lamin Manneh, the One-UN Rwanda Resident Coordinator, described the launching of African Passport as "One of the high moments" of the summit.

Some observers feared the passport initiative might trigger mass migrations.

But Khabele Matlosa, the AU's director of political affairs downplayed this.

"Africa is a continent of migrants so we are not as suspicious of refugees," Matlosa told CNN.

He described the move as a test of Pan-Africanism, the doctrine which underpins the African Union's existence. "We are committed to this philosophy." Endit