By Christian Buhendwa

It is official! The African Union has agreed to introduce one passport for access to all African nations. How will this impact the business within the Continent? This is a question to look at today. Economic and new policy changes in countries always have an impact over the business sectors.

The global logistics and freight forwarding industries are key players to enable different areas of operations to be connected from destination A to destination B around the world. Freight forwarders act like the bridge to connect all of those destinations. They also play a big role within the African continent. Although challenges exist because of the lack of infrastructure for certain countries and destinations they still manage to survive. And that is what business is all about “Surviving”.

With a Unique Passport of All African Nations Is it a Utopia?
Many communities for free moving of goods and persons were originally thought of as a utopia. However it is the leadership and commitment towards the vision that made it reality. For example, The Schengen Area includes 26 European countries that have abolished passports and any other type of border control at their mutual borders.

At the 27th AU Summit held from 10-18th July 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda 54 countries in the African continent were represented by their leaders. One important point for the future of African citizen and business in general is “One Unique Passport of the Whole Continent”. This will allow the free movement of persons, with no Visa required to move to other countries. This is really a big jump towards something totally new. The proposal to implement a single passport for Africa is part of the AU’s 2063 Agenda.

How this Change Will Have an Impact Over the Freight Forwarding and Logistics Industry?
For now being a utopia into action, some leaders of African Nations received the prototype passport. By 2018 the rest of the citizens will begin receiving them especially business people. This plan offers much hope for the future development of African Continent for business.

Freight forwarders will benefit for different transactions and operations essential for their business. For example, sometimes when visiting other nations Port of Control, Loading Point, Delivery Point, Transaction Bypass it can be difficult and confusing to present the proper documents. This is because of visa issues, complexity of the required documents and being granted official access to reach those areas. Sometimes the documents are not issued or there are delays.

This process will also cause a delay on the cargo reaching the ultimate destination. Getting the visa for some countries may be expensive compared to other countries and all that had a big impact over the business and customer relations. In addition there is the matter of tracking the goods or consignment by following up clearances which was a challenge as well. But if you can easily go and follow up, this will have a big impact on your business turnover, attending business conferences, meeting and creating partnerships with other business. It saves time and increases productivity.

Single African Passports AUA single passport will enable free movement of people and allowing trading to be conducted more easily. This will have a high impact for businesses, especially those in the logistics industries. These companies do a high volume of transactions and different trading and clearing operations need to be conducted during the operations process.

While there is no guarantee that everything will be done perfectly there is a much greater chance for business development in the future.

We are still at early stage for a proper development of the plan. So yes, the African continent, is emerging and envisioning for future changes and development.

Though there is still many issues within the developing Continent and countries, the future is bright and promising for business affaires. This is especially true for the logistics and freight forwarders who act like a bridge to connect: America, Asia, Europe, Oceania and more with the African continent. We can say freight forwarders play an important role internally and externally for the business development of the continent and the new plan will make some changes. ”

Better live life with a vision and work hard towards it, than living with a vision without action”.

About the Author: Christian Buhendwa is a MBA Graduate Student at Stamford International University in Bangkok, Thailand. He has a deep passion in creating, developing and building businesses with the combination of technology to help achieve business plans and strategies.