Borderless Africa
An Africa without borders presents immense opportunities for entrepreneurs allowing for free flow of capital and goods. It also opens up opportunities for increased tourism traffic within the continent, thereby boosting growth in the downstream hospitality and boosting local economies.
While the vision of a borderless continent has been on the cards for a long time as per of the long term strategy economic blue print by the Africa Union. It has begun to be realised gaining momentum of late with the the coming into effect of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area actualising the desire by Africa to emerge as a powerful trading bloc.
The need for opening up of borders has received received an enormous boost from some of the continent's leading business figures, such as Alik Dangote, the richest man on the African continent. Who have advocated for the removal of visa restrictions for all Africans without exception. They have put across strong arguements against the imposition of visa requirements on fellow Africans clearly showing the immoral wrongness of the practice. As well as the counter productive effect it has of chasing away capital rather than attracting it. Giving an account of the negative imposing visa restrictions on fellow Africans, based on his personal experience on the difficulties of traveling from one African country to another, Alik Dangote, during a business summit in Ghana, laid it plainly with the example of travelling with the holder of a British passport who will get preferrential treatment at the port of entry of an African country. While he with his African passport will have be subjugated to visa requirements.
Yet between him and his colleague who is the the holder of a British passport, he is the one with money. However after having life made difficult for him, he will not invest his money in that country. Which follows the adage that money stays where feels comfortable.
The beaurucracy of visa requirements certainly does not help in that regard. Rather it is counterproductive. Fortunately a countries in the continent are listening and have begun to take practical action in line with the ideal of the ease of doing business. With the latest being the example of Rwanda which has removed visa requirements for citizens of all African countries wishing to travel to the east African country. While Kenya has promised to also remove visa requirements for all African citizens by December 2023.
These countries join a growing number of countries on the African continent that are taking action on their own outside the initiative of African Contin toental Free Trade Area, giving momentum to the creation of an Africa without borders. A truly intergrated Africa where citizens can invest in opportunities across the continent.
Namibia and Botswana have gone a step further further in this cause and done away with the need for citizens of either country to carry passports when travelling to either country. They will only be required to have with them their national identity documents according to the arrangement they entered into. Both countries also expressed their desire to enter into such arrangements with more countries in the region.
These steps being taken by various African countries towards regional intergration are important in creating new jobs in various sectors across the continent through increased investment inflows from within the African region. As well as due to ease of access to a much bigger regional market with a potential 1.2billiom consumers of goods and services.
It also provides for synergies between African countries where they can share technical expertise. A good example of which is the arrangement between Zimbabwe and Rwanda where Rwanda's education system which has a leaning towards innovation is benefitting from the expertise of specialist teachers from Zimbabwe. The education systems of both countries share similaries with their emphasis on naturing innovative thinking among learners. It is their shared vision foster enterpreneurship among learners who will be problem solvers creating new products and services. Thereby growing the economies of their respective countries by creating new industries.
It was in that regard that Rwanda approached Zimbabwe to help it make up for its deficit in the field of educators to help translate the vision into reality. Zimbabwe was only too glad to assist and there are currently about 200
Zimbabwean who have been incorporated into the Rwandan eduction system.
Corporation between nations has not only been limited to the field of education with there having been discussions revolving around the possibility Kenyan farmers being given land in Zambia to help with the shortfall in grain production in Zambia. It was also envisaged that they would produce surplus for export to Kenya. If such an arrangement is to come into effect, it will be yet another shining example of shared synergies between two African countries being made possible through the implementation of the vision of a borderless Africa. While complete removal of borders may not be an overnight event. The process has certainly begun with these initial steps which hold the promise to gather momentum as Africans begin to realise the benefits that seamless corporation between African states can bring. An Africa whose seamless integration is unlimited by national borders promises new possibilities for all nations on the continent by leveraging on their relative strengths to foster closer co-operation with each other. Such co-operation could involve oil producing African nations on the continent which lack refining capacity sending their crude oil to be refined in fellow African countries that have refineries. Countries could enter into an arrangement where the country providing refining services is allowed to retain a certain percentage of the refined oil product in exchange. The benefits would be immense even spilling over to other African nations that would get the refined oil at a much cheaper landing rate as it could be pumped to them massive pipe lines linking nations directly. Or it can be carried overland by oil tankers. Such a scenario again can only be possible with massive investments in infrastructure development transcending national boundaries. These would benefit African countries by cutting out the need to pay a huge import bill for refined oil products from abroad. Thereby saving the much needed forex for infrastructure and other much needed developmental projects.
The same level of co-operation can also be carried by countries in the mineral production sectors where a country like Sierra Leone could send it's diamonds to a country such as Botswana also a leading diamond producer, with expertise in the processing of diamonds. Such smart partnerships which are only possible through unrestricted movement of goods, services and people can greatly boost African economies. Ensuring mutual growth all and taking away the need for Africans to migrate other parts of the world in search of greener pastures. By acting collectively to create a truly intergrated Africa we ensure that capital is made comfortable enough to want to remain stay on our beautiful continent.