Sierra Leone’s passport has maintained its lead as the most powerful in the Mano River Union (MRU), the latest global mobility ranking has shown.
The Sierra Leonean passport improved 10 places to position 74 in 2023, up from 83 in 2022, according to the Henley Passport Index Report released this week. Cote d’Ivoire’s passport comes second in the sub region, with a ranking of 79, followed by the Guinean passport at 80 and the Liberian passport at the bottom at 87.
The Henley Passport Index, which is based on exclusive and official data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), is a global ranking based on the freedom of travel for holders of a country’s ordinary passport. A total of 199 countries are ranked according to the number of countries their citizens can travel to without the need of a visa or where they could get visa on arrival.
The number of countries a specific passport is allowed in without a visa is the visa-free “score”.
While in 2022 Sierra Leoneans could travel to 64 countries without a visa or with the option of getting visa on arrival, this number has increased to 67 countries in 2023, according to the report released on Tuesday, July 18.
The Gambian passport ranks the highest in West Africa, with the global ranking of 72, with Sierra Leone at second position. They are followed by Cape Verde (75), Ghana (76), Benin (78), Burkina Faso (79), Cote d’Ivoire (79), Guinea (80), Senegal (81), Togo (81), Niger (82), Guinea Bissau (83), Mali (83), Liberia (87), and Nigeria (91).
The Indian Ocean Island nation of Mauritius maintains its top position on the continent, improving five places in the global ranking to hold position 29. Mauritius citizens can visit 148 countries visa-free in 2023, compared to 146 in 2022.
The other top 10 African countries in the ranking are South Africa (52), Botswana (60), Namibia (64), Lesotho (65), eSwatini (67), Kenya (68), Malawi (69), Tanzania (70), Tunisia (71), and Zambia (71).
Somalia, positioned 100 globally, is at the bottom of the continental Africa list, with its citizens having access to only 35 vis-free countries.
At the top of the global ranking is Singapore, which dislodged Japan, allowing visa-free users to access 192 countries, followed by Germany, Italy and Spain, which are positioned second, with 190 visa-free countries, each.
At the bottom of the global table is Afghanistan’s passport, which allows its holders to visit only 27 countries visa-free. It comes below Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
The 2023 report show that the general trend over the history of the 18-year-old ranking has been towards greater travel freedom, with the average number of destinations travelers are able to access visa-free nearly doubling from 58 in 2006 to 109 in 2023, according to Henley and Partners, publisher of the report. It however said in a press statement that the global mobility gap between those at the top and bottom of the index is now wider than it has ever been, with top-ranked Singapore able to access 165 more destinations visa-free than Afghanistan.
Besides the Henley Passport Index, Henley and Partners also publishes the Henley Openness Index, which ranks countries based on the number of countries whose citizens can pass through their borders visa-free or with the possibility of acquiring visa on arrival. This index is topped by many countries in Africa.
Sierra Leone ranks 28th in Africa, with 113 out of 198 countries’ citizens able to enter the country without a visa or access to visa on arrival. Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea rank 84 each with only 23 countries’ citizens able to pass through their borders without a visa or access to visa on arrival. Liberia ranks 88, with only 15 countries whose citizens can pass through its border without a visa or access to visa on arrival.
Burundi, Comoro Islands, Djibuti and Guinea Bissau are at the top on the Openness Index with all 198 countries’ citizens able to enter their territories without a visa or with visa acquired on arrival.
