AP — For years African leaders have toyed with the idea of free movement by citizens across the continent, even raising the possibility of a single African passport.

Now some African countries are taking bold steps to encourage borderless travel that could spur trade and economic growth on a continent in desperate need of both.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta announced during his inauguration last week that the East African commercial hub will now give visas on arrival to all Africans. That follows similar measures by nations including Benin and Rwanda.

“The freer we are to travel and live with one another, the more integrated and appreciative of our diversity we will become,” Kenyatta said.

The African Union has cheered such steps, calling it the direction the 54-nation continent needs to take. “I urge all African states that have not yet done so to take similar measures,” AU Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said on Twitter after Kenya’s announcement.

Trade among African countries is at just 16 percent, while trade among European Union states is at 70 percent, Mahamat told AU trade ministers on Friday.

For a continent whose leaders often speak fondly of “African brotherhood” and once pondered the idea of a United States of Africa, the visa policies of many countries for many years suggested little progress in implementing the continent-wide, visa-free ideal advocated by the AU.

Africans can get a visa on arrival in 24 percent of African countries, yet North Americans, for example, have easier access on the continent, according to a 2017 report on visa openness by the African Development Bank. African Union figures show Africans need visas to travel to 54 percent of the continent.

Free migration of people across the continent would help in talent exchange as well as trade, said Ali Abdi, the Uganda chief of mission at the International Organization for Migration. Countries may have to invest more in border patrols but “the benefits far outweigh the costs, in my view.”

Kenya’s decision is a “good move and it’s progressive,” said Godber Tumushabe with the Uganda-based Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies. “It should have been done a long time ago.”

Change is coming, and not just in East Africa. While visiting Rwanda last year, Benin’s President Patrice Talon said his West African country would no longer require visas for other Africans. He said he was inspired by Rwanda, whose government started issuing visas on arrival to Africans in 2013 and recently announced that in 2018 citizens of all countries will benefit from the policy.
“We are happy that other African countries are opening their borders up for Africans to increase foreign investments,” said Olivier Nduhungirehe, a deputy foreign minister in Rwanda in charge of regional integration. Opening borders will spur economic prosperity for the entire continent, he said.

Some African countries are going visa-free by region first. Weeks ago, the Central African Economic and Monetary Community removed visa requirements for citizens of its six members.

Many African countries rely heavily on tourism for foreign currency. Kenya’s new visa policy was welcomed in a country where the threat by Islamic extremists based in neighboring Somalia has deterred some international travelers.

Offering visas on arrival to all Africans could attract the continent’s small but growing middle class.

“Visa-free travel for Africans into Kenya is a great move by the president and a strategic one for the tourism industry,” said Bobby Kamani, who runs the popular Diani Reef Beach Resort and Spa in the second-largest city, Mombasa. “The president’s bold move couldn’t have come at a better time when the tourism sector has experienced uncertainty and is now on recovery mode.”

Conflict and sharp income disparities in many countries are among other factors slowing the adoption of visa-free policies. Even the African Union passport, launched in July 2016 and given to some heads of state, is yet to be offered to citizens.

Some North African countries, notably Libya, struggle with a flow of impoverished African migrants trying to make their way to Europe. South Africa, one of the continent’s top economies, has seen a sometimes violent backlash against African immigrants amid fears about crime and the taking of jobs. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and another of its strongest economies, maintains visa requirements before arrival for many nations across the continent.

Still, many are hopeful for a borderless Africa and urge those regional leaders to follow Kenya’s lead.

“Is a new wind blowing across #Africa?” Wolfgang Thome, a tourism consultant who once led the Uganda Tourism Association, tweeted. “When will the last walls fall? #Nigeria we are waiting!”

Following months of political drama, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta will be sworn in for his second term in office tomorrow, November 28. Citing procedural failures, the Kenyan Supreme Court nullified results from the first round of presidential elections in August, a decision hailed as a sign of Kenya’s growing democratic maturity. The narrative changed, however, when opposition leader Raila Odinga boycotted the subsequent election by announcing the withdrawal of his candidacy. Kenyatta won the second-round election with 98 percent of the vote amid low turnout and threats to the judiciary and civil society. Kenya now stands at a precarious juncture, with the possibility of a deep political rift further fragmenting the country.

What makes Kenya’s backsliding particularly worrisome is that it’s part of a disturbing regional trend. Democratic progress across Africa has been mixed—Central Africa has always struggled, but in East and West Africa, there have been important gains in recent years. Although West Africa appears to be consolidating those gains, East Africa is in the midst of a democratic decline that is reversible in its early stages but threatens to gather momentum.

Political and media space in parts of East Africa is closing as presidents and prime ministers flaunt their security credentials. Several leaders, such as Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, are altering their constitutions in order to prolong already lengthy terms in office. No country in East Africa is rated “free” in U.S. non-governmental organization (NGO) Freedom House’s most recent rankings, and only two are deemed “partly free.” Many are in fact electoral authoritarian regimes that superficially adhere to democratic rules of the game but in reality employ authoritarian tactics. There is little precedent for change through the ballot box: outside of Somalia, no leader in East Africa has ever left office by losing an election.

AUTHORITARIANISM’S RISE

The democratic decline is gripping a region of genuine strategic importance. East Africa can be an engine of continental economic growth, has made important gains in regional economic integration, and is rich in natural resources, including substantial oil and gas reserves. Extremist groups affiliated with both al Qaeda and the Islamic State (or ISIS) are active in Somalia and occasionally cross into neighboring countries. The United States’ largest military presence in Africa is in Djibouti, with China and several other countries operating military bases nearby. Tiny, authoritarian Eritrea is the top African source of active asylum seekers in Libya. The region borders the Red Sea, a key part of maritime trade routes between Europe and Asia.

The region’s retreat from democracy threatens all these interests. Its strongman leaders may offer short-term stability, but their authoritarian practices and resistance to building democratic institutions weaken the underpinnings of the state and make the inevitable leadership transitions more likely to be volatile. As seen in Somalia, failed governance and weak state structures create conditions in which extremists thrive. Inconsistent rule of law and tolerance for corruption make for a less desirable destination for foreign investment.

The Pentagon gained approval from the Nigerien government to fly armed drones out of Niamey, Niger’s capital, a State Department official said Friday, an effort that will put more firepower in the region, and also require more U.S. troops there.

Air Force personnel who specialize in transporting, inspecting, loading and maintaining weapons such as Hellfire missiles and GPS-guided bombs will be needed in Niger, along with refuelers, mechanics and other logistical personnel, according to Paul Scharre, the director of the technology and national security program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.

Additional pilots and aircraft may also be needed. There are 800 U.S. personnel in Niger, mostly based at Niamey’s airport. It remains unclear whether the armed drones in Niger will be used to better protect U.S. troops, expand strike capabilities against militants in the region, or both, Scharre said.

The ability of the United States to provide adequate close air support and surveillance in Niger was questioned after the deaths of four U.S. soldiers in an ambush involving at least 50 militants near the Mali border on Oct. 4. French fighter aircraft arrived from Mali an hour after the attack but did not fire or drop any munitions, and French attack helicopters arrived later. The United States had an unarmed surveillance drone in the air during the fight.

Arming drones could help blunt future attacks in which militants outnumber Special Operations troops operating in small teams, Scharre said.

“A long history suggests small teams [of elite troops] can become rapidly vulnerable,” he said, noting instances like the “Black Hawk Down” mission in Somalia in 1993. “You need a quick-reaction force and medevac to be nearby. Support is not the place to skimp.”

Talks to arm U.S. drones have been going on for at least two years between the State Department, the Nigerien government and the Pentagon, the State Department official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss agreements not yet made public. The recent deaths of U.S. troops and an Islamic State presence in the region may have added some urgency for the move, the official said.

It was unclear whether the U.S. military must receive permission each time armed drones operate from Nigerien soil. That may depend on any potential restrictions on striking targets inside Niger itself, said Andrew Lebovich, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Current drone surveillance operations are conducted near the border with Mali, in northern Niger and in southern Libya, where militants use ungoverned areas to move fighters, weapons and contraband. The drones could be used in those areas.

“We won’t know until strikes start happening,” Lebovich said.

The Pentagon declined to comment on specific agreements. Maj. Audricia M. Harris, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said Friday that “the government of Niger and the U.S. stand firm in working together to prevent terrorist organizations from using the region as a safe haven.”

The agreement, outlined in a memo first reported by the New York Times, details a plan to shift the nerve center for unmanned flights to the Saharan city of Agadez, where the United States is finishing construction on a more sophisticated drone operation.

Nigerien officials have been under pressure to defuse tensions in the sparsely populated area, where civilians fear an increased foreign military presence puts them at risk for miscalculations and militant attacks.

In April 2016, U.S. security forces in Agadez thwarted a suspected attack on their compound by a convoy of men in three pickup trucks and a semi truck, according to a U.S. Air Force account recently made public. Air Force guards spotted the trucks racing toward the compound in the dark and stopping about 50 yards from the perimeter fence. The vehicles retreated after U.S. sharpshooters aimed lasers at them as a warning, according to the Air Force account.