Kenya’s Rankings Improves by Three on Visa Requirements for Travelers

Kenya dropped visa requirements for African travelers, but it is not easy to travel with the country’s passport.

The annual Henley Passport Index released on Jan. 9 ranks Kenya’s passport 67 globally allowing one to travel into 69 countries compared to Seychelles passport that provides visa-free access to 141 countries ranking top in Africa.

This is an improvement of three compared to 2017 index report.

The index showed an overall decline in the strength of African passports compared to other continents.

In Africa, Seychelles ranks highest together with Mauritius and South Africa ranked second and third for having the strongest passports.

“Seychelles is the highest-performing African country in 2018, ranking 27th on the index and moving up two places from 2017.

Mauritius, ranking 2nd in the region and 32nd globally, has visa-free access to 134 countries. South Africa is ranked 3rd overall in the region and 52nd globally, with visa-free access to 100 countries. With access to 32 countries, Somalia, ranked 100th, remained static compared with 2017.”

Akinwumi Adesina, President African Development Bank (AfDB) in the Africa Visa Openness Report 2016  he noted that “Africa largely remains closed, with Africans still needing visas to travel to over half of the continent. These headlines go against the continent’s goal to truly become ‘one Africa.’

“Having an open visa policy does not require large resources or complex systems. Countries can apply positive reciprocity but also open up unilaterally. And it can be done through a number of smart solutions,” he added.

The top ten countries leading in visa openness in Africa include Seychelles, Uganda, Togo, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Ghana, Mauritania, Mozambique, Mauritius and Rwanda.

According to AfDB, visa openness is about facilitating free movement of people. It is about getting more people mobile, to carry out their business easily, spontaneously, quickly, with minimum cost.

Aspiration 2 of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 includes a goal to be a “continent with seamless borders” where “the free movement of people, capital, goods and services will result in significant increases in trade and investments amongst African countries rising to unprecedented levels, and strengthen Africa’s place in global trade.”

The Henley Passport Index is a ranking of all the passports of the world according to the number of countries their holders can travel to visa-free.

The ranking is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which maintains the world’s largest and most comprehensive database of travel information, and is enhanced by extensive in-house research.

In the report, Germany holds on to 1st place on the Henley Passport Index for the fifth year running, with its citizens enjoying visa-free access to 177 countries in total, up from 176 countries in 2017.

Singapore ranks 2nd globally on the 2018 edition of the index, with visa-free access to 176 countries, while eight countries — Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, and the UK — share a 3rd place, offering passport-holders access to 175 countries.

Ranking jointly 4th on the index, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Spain all provide visa-free access to 174 countries.