The approval by the 46th Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) Summit of the agreement establishing a SADC Tourism UniVisa is a significant policy intervention. It merits more than passing attention.
The Africa Prosperity Network (APN) commends SADC for the decision. A single visa to facilitate movement across Southern Africa sends an unambiguous signal: that regional economic integration is to be pursued in practice, not just in principle.
Since its establishment in 2022, APN has made free movement of people a central pillar of its advocacy. The logic is straightforward. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement cannot deliver on its promise if the traders, entrepreneurs, innovators, investors and tourists who are to drive that trade cannot cross borders efficiently.
That advocacy is advanced through APN’s “Make Africa Borderless Now!” campaign, in collaboration with the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Africa Visa Openness Initiative (AVOI), AUDA-NEPAD and the Borderless Alliance.
The SADC arrangement, similar in intent to the Schengen visa, reflects precisely the kind of cross-border reform APN supports. By reducing cost, time and bureaucracy, it should expand intra-regional tourism, support small businesses and strengthen investor confidence in Southern Africa as a single market.
The context matters. Through AVOI, launched in 2016, the AfDB and the AU have been working together to create an Africa Visa Free Zone. In that regard, AVOI, produced jointly by the AfDB and the African Union (AU), marked a decade of tracking in 2025. It found that 28.2 per cent of intra-African travel routes are now entirely visa-free, a historic high.
The report also identified a plateau. While a small group of top performers had liberalised, 34 countries had, by 2025, made no progress, and a growing number had introduced complex Electronic Travel Authorisations that function as new barriers.
Against that backdrop, SADC’s step is material. The onus now shifts to implementation. APN urges SADC member states to move promptly from approval to signature and rollout. The value of a UniVisa lies not in the agreement itself, but in a traveller’s ability to use it.
As APN sets out in its 2026 Free Movement Report Card,the question for the continent is no longer whether free movement is desirable, but the readiness of governments to implement it.
SADC has indicated that it is.