Reimagining a Borderless Africa: Turning Barriers into Bridges
<p>The lack of freedom of movement within Africa is a long-standing challenge that fascinates and frustrates me; my first insight on Twocents was even about freedom of movement, haha. Unlike other regions, such as the Schengen Area in Europe, ASEAN in Southeast Asia, and Mercosur in South America, Africa remains full of travel restrictions that prevent its citizens from traveling freely across their own continent.</p><p>This reality underscores missed opportunities for economic growth, entrepreneurship, and deeper continental integration. As an Afro-optimist, I firmly believe in the transformative potential of a borderless Africa—where borders serve as bridges rather than barriers. Such freedom could fuel intra-continental trade, tourism, and innovation – fundamental for development.
</p><p>However, the road to this vision is riddled with challenges. Even the AU goal of attaining a borderless Africa is on its agenda for 2063, a long, long time from now. Insufficient infrastructure significantly hinders progress. A glaring example is the lack of direct airline connections between regions like North Africa and East Africa. On a recent flight, I sat next to a Kenyan lady traveling to Morocco for work, but she had to first fly to Qatar, then back to the continent to reach her destination—just to highlight some of the logistical barriers within the continent.
</p><p>As a result, Africa collects only about 2% of global tourism revenue, a stark contrast to regions like Europe where borderless travel fosters seamless movement and robust domestic tourism. In Africa, however, the dependence on international tourists from outside the continent remains high. This is a missed opportunity, as tourism isn’t just about leisure; it encompasses medical travel, business exchanges, and cultural connections.</p><p>The vision of a borderless Africa is not just idealistic —it’s a necessity for unlocking the continent’s potential. Do you think Africa can achieve this?</p><p><br></p>
At the end of each month, we give out cash prizes to 5 people with the best insights in the past month
as well as coupon points to 15 people who didn't make the top 5, but shared high-quality content.
The winners are NOT picked from the leaderboards/rankings, we choose winners based on the quality, originality
and insightfulness of their content.
Here are a few other things to know
1
Quality over Quantity — You stand a higher chance of winning by publishing a few really good insights across the entire month,
rather than a lot of low-quality, spammy posts.
2
Share original, authentic, and engaging content that clearly reflects your voice, thoughts, and opinions.
3
Avoid using AI to generate content—use it instead to correct grammar, improve flow, enhance structure, and boost clarity.
4
Explore audio content—high-quality audio insights can significantly boost your chances of standing out.
5
Use eye-catching cover images—if your content doesn't attract attention, it's less likely to be read or engaged with.
6
Share your content in your social circles to build engagement around it.
Contributor Rankings
The Contributor Rankings shows the Top 20 Contributors on TwoCents a monthly and all-time basis.
The all-time ranking is based on the Contributor Score, which is a measure of all the engagement and exposure a contributor's content receives.
The monthly score sums the score on all your insights in the past 30 days. The monthly and all-time scores are calcuated DIFFERENTLY.
This page also shows the top engagers on TwoCents — these are community members that have engaged the most with other user's content.
Contributor Score
Here is a list of metrics that are used to calcuate your contributor score, arranged from
the metric with the highest weighting, to the one with the lowest weighting.
4
Comments (excluding replies)
5
Upvotes
6
Views
1
Number of insights published
2
Subscriptions received
3
Tips received
Below is a list of badges on TwoCents and their designations.
Comments