Burundi’s immigration policies for other Africans have improved significantly, with the country’s visa openness ranking rising by 32 places in the year and becoming the second most open country in the East African Community (EAC) bloc.
According to a new report by the African Development Bank (AfDB), Burundi’s rise, mostly since 2021, is a result of Bujumbura accepting all travellers from Africa into the country either on visa-free travel (all East Africans) or visas on arrival (all other Africans). Burundi does not have electronic visas yet, but it does not require Africans to apply for entry permits before travelling to its territory.
Burundi’s decision to allow all Africans to travel without visa applications helped it rise from position 44 to 12, making it one of the most improved countries on the continent’s visa openness ranking alongside Benin, Nigeria and Ethiopia
This may give President Evariste Ndayishimiye credit for reforming his country’s immigration and foreign policies since coming to power at the height of Covid-19. He is the current chair of the EAC.
In the bloc, The Africa Visa Openness Report 2022 shows that Rwanda is still the highest-ranked country on visa openness, allowing visitors from 18 African countries without visas, while granting visas to all other Africans on arrival. It was ranked 5th in Africa, behind Benin, Seychelles, the Gambia and Ghana.
Tanzania allows citizens from 19 African countries visa-free travel, 22 nations get visas on arrival, while visitors from 12 other African countries apply for permits before travel. Tanzania is ranked 20.
But Uganda (30th), Kenya (31st), the Democratic Republic of Congo (47th) and South Sudan (50th) all fell out of the top 20 on the list of African countries seen as most progressive in welcoming Africans.
At the report launch on Sunday, Jean-Guy Afrika, the acting Director of Regional Integration Coordination Office at the AfDB, said the ranking is not all-revealing but only hints at trends on the continent. For example, island nations and landlocked African countries tended to be more welcoming to African visitors. Seychelles, Cape Verde, Mauritius and Comoros were all in the top 20.
Still, landlocked countries with the most natural resources or better economies seemed more unwelcoming. South Sudan, for example, requires visas before departure from 50 countries and allows visa-free travel from only three neighbouring countries. Botswana, too, was cited as restrictive, requiring visas from visitors from 35 countries before travel.
“The causes vary, they are dynamic, but they generally straddle issues of geography, political, economic and cultural reasons,” he told an audience at the launch in Balaclava, Mauritius, on the sidelines of the African Economic

Conference.
The index, he argued, was not a name-and-shame list of poor performers but an outline of recent trends. On the continent, the general pattern is that “you will need a visa to travel to other African countries at least 47 percent of the time.”
Some countries also have other non-tariff barriers. In the Gambia, deemed the third best African country in welcoming others, behind Benin and Seychelles, all air travellers pay a $ 20’ airport clearance’ fee on arrival and departure even though no African visitor needs to apply for visas before travel.
The Index Africa Visa Openness Index (AVOI), an initiative of the African Development Bank and the African Union Commission, measures the extent to which African countries are open to visitors from other African countries.
Researchers calculated the number of African countries whose citizens must obtain a visa before travelling there, the number of countries whose citizens may obtain a visa upon arrival, and the number of countries whose citizens do not need a visa to enter. Nations ranking best in these categories receive one (1) as the highest mark. The data was collected between June and August this year.
The index indicates the readiness of African countries to implement some of the continent’s recent protocols on open borders and the movement of the people, such as the Free Movement protocol, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area agreement (AfCTA), and the continental open skies agreement (SAATM).
Some 36 of 54 countries have improved or maintained their score since 2016. 13 of 2022’s top-20 performers have a higher score today than in 2016 when the ranking was launched.
“The AfCTA makes an important contribution to how trade agreements can facilitate the movement of people,” argued Zodwa Mabuza, the Principal Integration Officer, Regional Integration Coordination Office at the AfDB. But she warned that the phobia among Africans in welcoming others means the continent must discuss some kind of ‘AfCTA’ visa to address concerns on how movement under free trade can continue without disturbing security.
The report says trade may thrive in a more integrated continent but could still be limited if other attendant disciplines are kept the same.
“Access to the continent’s markets also depends on conditions that govern the trade in services. Trading across borders requires communications, financial services, and transport, and many of these involve people moving across borders. So do tourism, higher education, medical care, professional services and many others.
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There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19 V.5316
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In recent years, South Africa has seen a significant influx of immigrants from various African countries, as well as other parts of the world. This has raised important questions about the country`s immigration policies and their impact on job creation for both locals and immigrants. The South African immigration system, like many other countries, is a complex and ever-evolving process that aims to balance the country`s economic needs with its social and cultural interests. Let`s take a closer look at how this system intersects with job creation in South Africa. The South African government implemented the Immigration Act of 2002, which outlines the country`s immigration policies and procedures. Under this act, foreigners are required to obtain a visa or permit to enter, work, or study in South Africa. The type of visa or permit required depends on the intended purpose of the individual`s visit and their country of origin. V.5312
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Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17 V.5313
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Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has said the public has shown great support for the final White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection which appeared in the Government Gazette on Wednesday. Briefing the media, he addressed what he saw as a long-overdue need to replace an outdated Citizenship Act, as well as enact proposed changes to existing legislation. V.5306
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