February 25, 2026

Press Release: APN Demands Visa-Free Africa as 6,530 Delegates Back 12-Point Borderless Compact

by: APN Communication Directorate

Accra, Ghana – 25 February 2026 – The Africa Prosperity Network (APN), organisers of the annual Africa Prosperity Dialogues, has today released the APD 2026 Action Compact, a bold 12-point blueprint demanding urgent implementation of Africa’s integration agenda. The Compact distils the outcomes of the three-day Africa Prosperity Dialogues held from 4–6 February 2026 at the Accra International Conference Centre.

Among its key demands is visa-free travel for Africans across all African Union (AU) member states. It also calls for seamless cross-border trade, including enabling Africans to buy and sell across borders using mobile money wallets, which the SMEs stressed would be a major, practical step to significantly boost intra-African trade.

The Compact emerged from high-level Presidential and Business Leaders Dialogues, plenary sessions, roundtables, panel discussions, and 12 executive breakfast meetings, specifically tailored to address the concerns and aspirations of SMEs, women and youth entrepreneurs. They were all convened under the official theme of APD 2026: “Empowering SMEs, Women and Youth in Africa’s Single Market: Innovate. Collaborate. Trade.”

Finalised on 6 February, this “People’s Compact” captures the collective voice of 6,530 participants, who travelled to Accra from 51 African nations and 40 others.

Across every session, one conclusion was unmistakable: empowering SMEs, women and youth will not come from fresh AU declarations, but from implementing the treaties and protocols already signed.

Delegates pointed to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (Abuja Treaty of 1991), the Agreement Establishing the AfCFTA (2018), the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, and the AfCFTA Protocols on Digital Trade and on Women and Youth in Trade as ready-made examples of instruments awaiting full execution. The framework exists. What is missing is delivery.

Speakers noted that although the Free Movement Protocol was adopted in 2018, only four member states have ratified it, far short of the 15 required for entry into force. Without free movement, businesses cannot scale across Africa, and the promise of a true single market for 1.5 billion people remains constrained, they argued.

With youth unemployment the most pressing challenge facing governments across the continent, delegates concluded that economic integration can, therefore, not be optional. They described it as the only viable path to the 15 to 20 million jobs Africa must create annually, describing the existing fragmentation not merely inefficient but economically self-defeating for Africa’s sovereign states, both individually and collectively.

The Compact focuses on the “Make Africa Borderless Now!” movement, the APD 2026 initiative, which launches a continent-wide petition to mobilise ten million (10,000,000) signatures. The petition will be presented to the African Union Assembly in February 2027 with one clear demand: RATIFY AND IMPLEMENT NOW.

“This Compact is the collective voice of Africa’s private sector, women and youth,” says Dr Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the Advisory Council of the Africa Prosperity Network and architect of ‘The Africa We Want.’

“The tools for prosperity already exist. The time for implementation is now,” says the former Chairperson of the AU Commission when the Agenda 2063 was launched in 2013.

To donate or add your signature to the ten million and support the movement, visit: www.makeafricaborderlessnow.com