The African Development Bank (AfDB) has published on 12 December 2023 the Africa Visa Openness Index 2023, the report that analyses the visa openness policies that African countries adopt towards other African States. The seventh edition of the report reveals significant progress, showing an increasing number of African countries that have opened their doors, at least apparently, to visitors from other African countries. The publication comes on the day of celebration of the birth of the Kenya Republic, during which the Kenyan President announced the elimination of visa from all countries (both African and non-African), starting from 1 January 2024. A measure this, that is expected to increase tourism in Kenya.

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The Global Report for Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation is an annual report published by the United Nations that analyses the progress in facilitating trade and on digital trade in 163 countries from different regions of the world. The report recognizes the critical role that trade facilitation plays in supporting sustainable development, by enabling more efficient and transparent trade procedures, enhancing the resilience of global supply chains and decreasing overall trade costs. The 2023 edition of the report evaluates 60 trade facilitation measures (from the 58 of the 2022 edition), classified into 4 groups: 1) general trade facilitation; 2) digital trade facilitation; 3) sustainable trade facilitation and a residual one (4), called ‘other trade facilitation’. Each of such groups is further categorized into 11 subgroups covering both binding and non-binding measures embedded in the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), as well as measures that go beyond the scope of the WTO TFA. The subgroups, in turn, are categorized in individual measures (ex. publication of existing import-export regulations on the Internet) that in the case of binding measures included in the WTO TFA, show the relevant article of the agreement that regulates the measure (ex., in the case of publication of existing import-export regulations on the Internet, the relevant TFA article is art. 1.2).

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