THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
The African Union (AU) will unveil a unique African passport in February, lifting travel barriers and fulfilling an important part of the organization’s cherished pan-African ambitions – free movement of its peoples.
AU Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat is confident that the African passport move will succeed. He said that details about implementation will be announced at the 32nd summit of the AU in February when the prototype will be unveiled.
“I am pleased to stress that, in February 2019, in Addis Ababa, at the 32nd Summit of our Union, the Commission will present, for adoption, guidelines on the design, production and issuance of the African passport, the materialization of which will take us one step closer to the long-held dream of complete free movement across the continent,” Mahamat said in a statement.
The African passport project has reignited a pan-African sentiment similar to the one that followed the independence of African states. Once fully implemented, the African passport will first be delivered to African presidents and senior officials, including foreign ministers and diplomats. Only after that will it be generalized to other officials and the general population.
Conditions on how to proceed are set to be announced in February together with the unveiling of the prototype on 10 – 11 February at the 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union. The Summit will be held at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The move comes months after 32 African countries signed a Free Trade Agreement to further the continent’s economic and socio-political integration. The long-term goal of the agreement is to create an integrated African market that lifts existing barriers to the free movement of people and goods. There are also talks of a common African currency.
As part of the much-reported Africa 2063 vision, both the unique passport and African Free Trade Agreement are aimed to “unify all Africans,” according to AU officials.
Only two African countries, the Seychelles and Benin, offer visa-free travel to all African countries. But once the new passport is issued, Mahamat hopes, barriers will be lifted and Africans will be able to freely travel across the continent.
The 32nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) will take place from 15 January to 11 February 2019, under the theme “Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons: Towards Durable Solutions to Forced Displacement in Africa”.
Adira Kallo with agency report
