Effect of Strong Passport on Economic Growth: How African Politics Have Incapacitated Their Passports

Abstract

African states and few Asian nations accepted an inferior position by allowing their citizens to seek visas when they want to travel to western countries, while their peers from western nations can enter the said nations at a will. The problem is that Africans did not reciprocate the demands of visa requirement by westerners. The article will disseminate how African passports became useless at the expenses of western countries and how they mint billions of dollars from the wealthy citizens of the world who seek these strong passports to enable them travel for leisure and business purposes without deterrent. Thus sabotaging the economy of African countries. The study found that top 40 African countries in terms of their population have an average passport rank of 90, which means that these 40 most populous countries can access only 58 countries without visa. These 40 African countries have an average population of 32.7 million, and average land area of 726,801km². On the same note, forty top European countries in terms of population have an average population of 14.8 million, and land area mean of 147,085. But these European countries have average passport rank of 16, and average access without visa of 172 countries. This means that African countries do not reciprocate visa conditions in the European countries meaning that they allow European citizens to enter visa free in their countries, while African citizens have to struggle in order to get European visas.