Meriyem Kokaina, a Moroccan content creator and podcaster, travels across the continent interviewing people for her stories on African literature.

“In many cases, especially when traveling to a West African country, I use my Moroccan passport. But when heading east to another North African country, I often rely on my French passport,” she tells The North African.

“With my Moroccan passport, I can only enter Tunisia visa-free, but I can’t visit Egypt, Libya, or Algeria without a visa. And when you require a visa, it naturally discourages people from traveling,” she adds.

In September, Algerian authorities reinstated visa requirements for Moroccan citizens, ending nearly two decades of visa-free travel between the two countries.

This decision further undermines the Arab Maghreb Union’s scheme for the free movement of people and adds to the region’s already restrictive visa policies.

The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), North Africa’s primary regional economic community, was established in 1989 to foster political and economic unity among its members: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia.

Despite having the fewest member states of any regional economic community in Africa, the AMU ranks lowest in average visa openness, according to the 2024 Africa Visa Openness Report.

Figure .1 RECs average visa openness score

The average visa openness of a Regional Economic Community (REC) is calculated by combining the individual scores of its member states and dividing the total by the number of members.

However, there is significant variation in the visa openness scores among AMU member states. Mauritania, which ranks 9th continent-wide, offers visa-free access to three AMU member states, five West African countries, and visa-on-arrival facilities for all other African nationals.

Tunisia falls in the middle of Africa’s visa openness index, granting visa-free access to nationals from all AMU member states and 17 other countries in West and Southern Africa. However, it does not provide visa-on-arrival facilities.

The remaining North African nations, including non-AMU members such as Egypt, are ranked in the bottom quarter of the index.

Figure. 2 North African Visa Openness Ranking

Why is it difficult to travel within the region?

One of the primary barriers to implementing a free movement scheme in North Africa is the absence of a functional regional bloc to facilitate visa regulatory harmonization, as seen in the East African Community (EAC) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

In these blocs, passport-free cross-border travel is possible in several scenarios, and both have even adopted regional passports.

In contrast, the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) has been hampered by longstanding tensions among its member states, to the extent that it has not held a high-level meeting in over a decade.

There have been hopes of reviving the AMU following Morocco’s return to the African Union in 2017. During a visit to Morocco in June 2018, AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat raised the issue in his meetings, and the African Development Bank suggested admitting Egypt as a regional member through its Institutional Support Project to the AMU. However, these efforts were not realized.

The Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), another economic community comprising several North African nations alongside members from West, Central, and East Africa, has faced significant operational challenges since the outbreak of Libya’s socio-political crisis in 2011. As a result, it had to relocate from Tripoli to N’Djamena, Chad.

There have also been efforts to revitalize CEN-SAD, sometimes led by Egypt or Morocco. However, these efforts have primarily focused on security concerns, such as combating terrorism in the Sahel and tightening borders to reduce illegal migration.

Countries can, however, lift restrictions on cross-border movement through bilateral agreements without needing a regional framework, which could eventually enhance regional integration.

So far, though, several North African countries have more bilateral agreements facilitating movement with nations outside their sub-region than with their immediate neighbors.

Is there enough incentive for people to move within the region?

“As a Moroccan citizen, I’d say there’s limited motivation to move across the region, except perhaps for tourism,” Kokaina said.

“It’s challenging to start a business, and there’s little economic reason to take on the difficulty of resettling in another North African country,” she added.

According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the Maghreb remains one of the least integrated trading blocs globally, with intra-regional trade accounting for just 4.8% of its total trade volume.

However, the economic potential is significant. A World Bank report on Maghreb integration estimated that deeper cooperation—including liberalizing services and reforming investment rules—could have increased real GDP per capita between 2005 and 2015 by 34% in Algeria, 27% in Morocco, and 24% in Tunisia.