Ghana’s Majority Leader of Parliament, Mahama Ayariga, has reiterated calls for a visa-free open skies and single biometric passport in Africa.

He made these calls during a speech at the 2026 Africa Prosperity Dialogue, held under the theme “Empowering SMEs, Women and Youth in Africa’s Single Market: Innovate, Collaborate, Trade,” Mr Ayariga urged African leaders present to expedite processes to adopt the African free movement agenda to boost jobs, business, and regional economic growth at large.

He stressed the benefits and impact the implementation of the borderless Africa policy is having in the sub-region, West Africa, and the need to extend it across the continent.

He said, “We want a visa-free Africa. I have seen how a visa-free West Africa has been enormously supportive”.

The Majority Leader also called for improved air connectivity across the continent, advocating for open skies policies.

“We want open African skies,” Mr. Ayariga said, adding that Africa should move towards “one African biometric passport” to facilitate easier travel for citizens.

Highlighting on policies to promote development among the youth in Africa, Mr Ayariga called for improved modern infrastructure to support young people and small and medium-sized enterprises operating across borders.

“Let’s build infrastructure that will enable our youth to trade digitally across borders and allow mobile money to operate seamlessly across countries,” he said.

Mr. Ayariga further noted that young Africans are demanding recognition of their academic qualifications across the continent.

“Our youth want their degrees recognised across Africa,” he stated.

According to him, Africa has made considerable progress at the regional level, particularly in West Africa.

“A lot of progress has been made, especially in West Africa,” he said, noting that his nearly decade-long service in the ECOWAS Parliament gave him first-hand experience of these achievements.

“Many of the demands being raised here are issues we worked on diligently, and in West Africa, we already enjoy many of those benefits,” he added.

He said these calls are not foreign to other continents like Europe, including North, East, Southern and Central Africa, as well as across Francophone, Lusophone, Arab and Anglophone regions, hence the need for the proposed regional integration.

Mr Ayariga said similar arrangements exist in other parts of the continent. He noted that the next step is to integrate these regional gains so that all Africans can benefit simultaneously.

“What is needed now is for the various blocs to integrate the facilities they have granted to their citizens and allow all Africans to enjoy them,” he said.

He mentioned that Ghana is ready to do its part to support the initiative for Africa’s growth and development.

“Our Parliament stands ready to walk the talk. We are prepared to pass all the agreements required to grant visa-free status to every African,” he added.

In a related development, Ghana and Zambia no longer require visas for travel between the two countries following a historic visa waiver agreement.

The move, announced by Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, during President John Dramani Mahama’s three-day state visit to Zambia, is aimed at strengthening diplomatic, economic, and people-to-people relations between the two African countries.

Narrating the events that preceded the agreement, Mr Ablakwa explained that he was in contact with the Chief Director, who was chairing a technical committee meeting.

He reminded her of the presidential directive, but there was initially some confusion because Ghana has three types of passports, diplomatic, service, and ordinary, while they only had two, Diplomatic and then the ordinary passports.

Ablakwa said he stressed that the directive came from the president, leaving the Zambian government with no choice but to agree to the deal.

"If you want our president to be here and you want his wishes to be granted, then you have to make sure that we reach this deal. And at 11: 30pm last night, they reached out to their president, and he said if it is my brother's wish, I am going to grant you. So we have the visa-waver agreement," Ablakwa announced.

Adding that, "this will bring the number to fifteen visa waiver agreements since President Mahama was sworn into office."