Urgently needed: New ideas to ease travel between African countries
Passengers disembark from an Ethiopian Airlines flight at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, marking renewed cross-border travel between Ethiopia and Eritrea on July 18, 2018.
It remains too difficult for Africans to travel between African countries. Africa-wide reforms have failed. The keynote continental agreement, the African Union’s Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, adopted in 2018, still has only four country ratifications from 55 members.
A new report of the African Union bemoans the low (though slightly improved) level of human integration in Africa. It describes the main challenges as legal fragmentation, weak institutional frameworks, security concerns, and limited mutual recognition of documents and qualifications.
