Southern African nations are poised to make travel across the region easier for tourists. Leaders from five countries committed to expanding a special visa program that allows visitors to enter multiple nations with a single permit.
This agreement, reached during a summit in Livingstone, Zambia, aims to boost tourism in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA). Currently, a “univisa” system is used by Zambia and Zimbabwe, with limited access for day trips to Botswana. The new plan would extend this visa to all KAZA member states and potentially to the broader Southern African economic bloc.
“We must simply say that this will happen,” declared Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, expressing his satisfaction with the consensus reached by regional leaders. Botswana’s Vice President, Slumber Tsogwane, also confirmed his country’s full adoption of the univisa program.
However, the KAZA summit wasn’t just about tourism. Member states also took a controversial stance, urging the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to lift its ban on the ivory trade. CITES, a global wildlife protection organization, outlawed the commercial trade of African elephant ivory in 1989 due to declining elephant populations. KAZA countries argue that their well-managed elephant populations justify a resumption of the ivory trade, with the revenue used to fund conservation efforts. They claim to hold stockpiles of ivory worth $1 billion.
Whether CITES will be swayed by this argument remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: Southern Africa is taking steps to streamline tourism and is embroiled in a heated debate over the future of the ivory trade.
