11 ms·
Rwanda joins Kenya to initiate visa-free travel for all Africans
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoThis is fantastic news that defies my understanding of political incentives. I'm astounded that Kenya would do this. The number of Africans who would prefer to live in Kenya is enormous. (Rwanda less so.) So far the only story I've been able to come up with is that the border is already so porous that anyone given a hard time about their visa probably arrived via one of the more expensive routes, like air fare, and are not who Kenya would like to keep out
- 55555 3y agoI am also shocked and confused. It doesn't sound like it's just for those who come by air, though. Which is wild.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> The number of Africans who would prefer to live in Kenya is enormous. Visa-free travel doesn't mean you can (legally) live/work there, though.
- yakubin 3y agoIt seems that that’s the goal though: > According to the African Union's website, the African Passport and free movement of people are intended to "remove restrictions on Africans ability to travel, work, and live within their own continent." > The African Union also established the African Continental Free Trade Area, a free trade area spanning the whole continent with an estimated value of $3.4 trillion. Its goals are to promote economic growth and provide a single, united market for the 1.3 billion people living on the continent. Sounds like EU.
- AdamN 3y agoAU definitely has goals that bring it closer to the EU. Time will tell how well they do. In many ways it's a similar problem: 1/ big and small countries, 2/ lots of land on a full continent, 3/ major differences (languages, which side of the road people drive on, GDP, government stability, etc...), 4/ value from working together.
- yardie 3y agoThe EU has all of those problems as well (UK, IE, MT are right-hand drive) and its been a success in my opinion. I'm not sure if the AU is ready to go as deep as common currency. A unified trading block makes trading with larger nations a lot more even.
- martopix 3y agoThe EU has two separate provisions: - The Schengen agreement, i.e. no border controls between countries - The fundamental right to free movement for citizens of the EU. There are countries where Schengen applies (you can go without visa or with the same visa as the rest of the EU, there is no border control for people normally), but there is no right to live there automatically (Switzerland). There are countries without Schengen so there are border checks, and the visa system for foreigners is separate, but EU citizens still have the right to live there (Ireland).
- boeingUH60 3y agoI’m from Nigeria, and I can ascertain that our borders are a joke. At this point, they can just declare visa-free travel across Africa for anyone…it’s not like they’re many desirable destinations on this continent that need to be gated.
- eschulz 3y agoI'm concerned this is going to further facilitate the exploitation of unskilled labor in these countries by the business class. I saw something online a few years ago about foreign workers in Kenya being treated much worse than their Kenyan peers (they were working in construction). Do you think this is a valid concern?
- doublerabbit 3y agoYes. It's exactly what the UK is doing by shipping illegal immigrants to Rwanda. Who will probably now be sent off to Kenyan camps, one could speculate.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- boeingUH60 3y agoThey don’t need foreign workers. Locals are already exploited enough because labor laws are lax or non-existent. I can tell many stories of white-collar workers being treated like trash, talk less of unskilled labor. This will just continue the status quo until we find a solution to the exploitation.
- Maken 3y agoIt can also work in the opposite direction: legal immigrants can bargain for better wages and report abuses to the authorities, while illegal immigrants are under the constant thread of being reported and kicked out of the country.
- AdamN 3y agoThe real purpose of the visa is money from fees. The people who arrive in the airports are the ones dealing with the visa process and they're all paying $50/visa or so - it's a big money maker.
- dalbasal 3y agoI think you probably put your finger on the rational driving force here. If you can't/don't control the borders anyway... It might be more rational to just go with that and enable official channels and/or rules to work. Insisting on the impossible, or the not-going-to-happen... It's a mistake politics makes regularly. Policies are only as effective as you can make them. Anyway, if Kenya is in then this is a serious thing.
- NauticalCat 3y agoNot really. The border with Somalia is closed because of the threat of Al Shabaab terrorist group in that country, and citizens of Tanzania and Uganda can already travel visa free by virtue of being member countries of the East African Community. The only existing problem with illegal immigration in Kenya, is from Ethiopia, and most of those are transiting to South Africa.
- vizzah 3y agoRecently on the news - Austria has entered into an agreement to move asylum seekers to an African country (a la UK to Rwanda). Now, it must be Kenya, if it's also "opening the borders". This is all in place to prevent mass-migration to Europe. Allow migrants to "try" other local countries first.
- arlort 3y agoOr maybe African countries have agency and this is unrelated
- YetAnotherNick 3y agoChanging countries is hard. And most people either do it for good job(which is good for Kenya) or refuge(which generally doesn't happen for middle income country due to all the social risks). e.g. Romania's GDP is ten time worse than Luxemborg and they have a free movement but not everyone is moving there.
- grecy 3y agoHave you been to Rwanda? Extremely clean and safe, massive tech sector and lots of entrepreneurs. I’d rather live there than Kenya
- oriettaxx 3y agoRwanda, you know it for sure, is a bit of a "police state". you have the feeling there are people listening around, especially if you talk about politics (and, never talk about the president): it may be just feelings, but you feel it clearly
- oriettaxx 3y agobut don't get me wrong What Rwanda is doing is great, and a lot depend on that president. What is revolutionary for me is having a country in Africa where: * police (and the state) has very low corruption at least interfacing ordinary people * basic services works (schools, roads, assistance for people with needs: food and health especially) * clean (and Rwanda is really clean!!) * and of course without the white ruling elite so that any African visiting it will just ask him/herself: * "omg, so it is possible in Africa?" and then * "so, why the f. in my country everything is so shitty?" Add to this president's quote: "Africans are the future of global tourism" and you have a great trigger.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- Maken 3y agoMaybe the issue here is that the border is so porous in the first place. Instead of trying to combat the inevitable, taxing it with visas will be much more profitable for the government.
- tim333 3y agoI've got a theory that sub Saharan Africa will develop a lot faster than many people think. I think of lot of why it did not in the past is it was mostly cut off from information. Until about 2000 there was not much in the way of books, newspapers etc that most Africans could afford and long distance communications were terrible. Also it was hard to get around unlike the areas where much culture developed around the med where it had been easy to get around by sea. Now they all have smart phones and internet and are on much more of a level playing field with the rest of the world.
- alephnerd 3y agoIt will develop, but it will take 3-4 generations. Just looking at East Africa, even Kenya's current HDI is at 0.575, and the rest of East Africa is much lower. Rwanda is at 0.534 (this is potentially suspect as Rwanda has been fudging numbers [0]), Tanzania is at 0.549, and Uganda is at 0.525. It is a similar story in West Africa as well. While there are some bright spots in human capital in Kenya, it's much less diffused than similar undeveloped to developed stories like Bangladesh or Vietnam, let alone China, India, Thailand, etc. Going from less developed to developing requires some kind of a nudge and capital, and in South Korea, Bangladesh and Vietnam's cases it came from Japan, India and China respectively. There isn't a similar case in sub-Saharan Africa yet. If South Africa can get it's economy back in track, there might be a shot for the rest of the continent, as they are in the right position to diffuse capital, human capital, and businesses. [0] - https://www.ft.com/content/683047ac-b857-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea203 https://www.ft.com/content/683047ac-b857-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea...
- tim333 3y agoIf you look at the rate of increase in HDI though then less developed Africa is the fastest improving. (Average annual HDI growth from 2010 to 2021 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...) The other region which has grown fast is the China area but that may slow a bit as China de-accelerates.
- 3y ago
- mtmail 3y agoIs the union passport a requirement, or does the article mention it as separate initiative? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Union_Passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Union_Passport
- setgree 3y agoGreat development -- people have a prima facie right to travel (and live and work!) where they please [0]. Meanwhile, the EU is going in the opposite direction [1] [0]https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil215/Huemer3.pdf https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil215/Huemer3.pdf [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37984102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37984102
- troupo 3y agoEurope is imposing the same "restrictions" on Americans that America has on Europeans: register online. Internally the travel remains the same: visa-free, border-free
- AdamN 3y agoThey're implementing it for 59 countries, not just the USA.
- signatoremo 3y ago> Europe is imposing the same "restrictions" on Americans that America has on Europeans: register online. It will be for more than just US citizens though. Also, the US’s restrictions have been in place for a long time. Why did EU decide to roll it out at this time? What are the benefits? If they wanted to show they are big boys they wouldn’t need to wait all this time.
- toyg 3y agoIt's a steady source of income. Keeping up the ESTA website doesn't cost $20 per user, and it lowers tracking costs for border agencies across all states. As of why now: iirc, it was introduced in the context of trade bickering under Trump.
- yakubin 3y agoThis is for countries not in EU. And even then there is a long list of exceptions. Internally, nothing is changing.
- 3y ago
- blagie 3y agoThis would be a big step forward. I think at least as important is having a common visa for non-Africans coming into Africa. The two together would create a Schengen-style zone across Africa, which would be huge. It's also okay if that didn't cover all of Africa. Africa is huge, and in practice, no one is going from Morocco to Kenya on a casual outing. If there were three Europe-sized blocks, that might be even better (but no more than a dozen). So long as doing business in Africa requires 54 visas and understanding 54 different regulatory regimes, the continent is kind of going to remain stuck. Only very major multinational corporations are able to navigate that mess, and from a tourism perspective, it's also no fun.
- whatever1 3y agoIn the social media era, borders will eventually collapse. We always suspected / heard how much better (objectively or subjectively) life can be in other places, now we can literally see it live. The location of birth is a completely unfair lottery we all participate in. We should at least have the opportunity to try and change our fate.
- capableweb 3y agoI'm all for a borderless future, but I see it as unlikely. What I think will happen will be extreme concentration of wealth in a few places, and those will put up sky-high walls (literal and figurative) to block out everyone else. And yeah, life is a lottery, from where we are born, to where we can go and which biological body we got.
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoNot just assets. Even preferences are a lottery -- whether you like to work, whether you're attracted to the kind of person your country's politics approves of, all of it.
- natechols 3y ago> What I think will happen will be extreme concentration of wealth in a few places, and those will put up sky-high walls (literal and figurative) to block out everyone else. That accurately describes the USA today (and has for many decades), and especially some of the wealthier parts like the SF Bay area.
- caskstrength 3y agoUSA has a long way to go yet. Think attack dogs, minefields and being shot in the back from watchtower for trying to illegally cross the border Berlin wall-style.
- jl6 3y agoI think the exact opposite is true. (A) social media doesn’t grant any new insight into the living conditions in attractive countries. That’s been apparent through media and communication for decades. (B) migration is hugely asymmetrical. Many people want to come to the high status countries, few want to come to the low status countries. Borders tend to be enforced more strictly when there is higher demand for entry. So in a world with clear differences in quality of life between different countries, borders aren’t going anywhere.
- salamanderss 3y agoIt's astonishing there's no bare bones citizen by investment scheme in sub Saharan Africa. Given the corruption and access to Rwanda and Kenya it seems like an obvious easy money printer.
- omneity 3y agoThe prevalence of the rule of law is variable depending on the country. Not the best incentive to park your money.
- salamanderss 3y agoYou could do a lot worse than Rwanda if you were fleeing Russia or the West Bank or something. Usually CBI are investment only in name, they're seen as a total loss.
- alephnerd 3y agoNot really. Rwanda has an HDI of 0.545 and this is suspect as well because they have been found to be fudging poverty and GDP metrics Even Gaza under occupation had a HDI of 0.699 (roughly comparable to Vietnam). The West Bank regions are roughly comparable to neighboring Jordan around 0.710-0.730. Even most Pakistanis, Afghans, and Syrians have better options in their home country from an economic standpoint. Russia itself has almost reached a threshold around "Developed" with an HDI around 0.824.
- salamanderss 3y agoI never meant to imply Rwanda is better than the aforementioned on a general level. When you are legitimately fleeing rather than economically migrating though that typically means your individual HDI of sorts was already near zero. It doesn't make much sense to use population HDI of origin for such persons.
- alephnerd 3y ago
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoMy favorite Rwanda fact is that it is significantly safer than the USA. Is Kenya similar? I know it's also on the up-and-up
- jeron 3y agoThe African Union was not something I had on my 2023 bingo card
- yawboakye 3y agogreat move! hopefully my beloved ghana will follow suit. anybody who has tracked flights for fun or profit realizes the poverty of international travel on the continent. fast on the heels of these changes should be transnational land transports (trains, buses, etc) to complete air travel, and an intentional promotion of the continent. i’m filled with sadness anytime i see a 20-something year-old african wasting away their strength and intellect in the care of a senile european. or the disproportionate number of africans cleaning the streets of paris. it’s got to stop.