South Africa’s 2025 G20 presidency, under the banner “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability,” draws heavily on the African philosophy of Ubuntu – the idea that “I am because we are”. Yet the G20’s call for a more inclusive, rules-based global order also raises an important question: how far do Africans themselves support greater integration and openness, and how do they experience these ideals in practice (free movement, for example)?
Drawing on Afrobarometer Round 8 data from 48,084 people across 34 African countries (2019-2021), this article examines public attitudes toward regional free movement, cross-border mobility, trade openness, and foreign retail participation. It provides a citizen-level perspective on Africa’s place in a fractured global order and highlights implications, including for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The analysis uses binary coding for comparability: for the statement-pair questions (Q61, Q66, Q67), I pool “agree very strongly” and “agree” into support for Statement 1 and pool the equivalent response options for Statement 2. For Q62, which asks about ease versus difficulty, I pool “very difficult” with “difficult”, and pool “easy” with “very easy”. Country-level percentages reflect shares of all respondents, meaning those who chose “neither”, “don’t know”, “refused”, or (for Q62) “never tried” remain in the denominator even though they are not displayed as bars.
The first question, Q61, focuses on regional integration: should people move freely across borders to work and trade, or should governments limit movement to protect citizens? Continental results lean pro-integration: 58% support free movement, and 38% prefer limits. In Kenya and Guinea, for example, 83% back free movement, and 81% in Liberia (Figure 1). A large cluster sits in the 70-79% range, including Tanzania and Togo (79%), Zambia, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe (all around 74%). Even where public debate is often tense, a majority still favours freer movement: South Africa, for example, records 51% support versus 42% for limits.
At the other end, Tunisia is the clearest outlier, with only 41% supporting free movement and 54% preferring limits. Malawi splits down the middle (48% versus 48%), and Lesotho is close to a coin flip as well (50% versus 46%). The key point here is that across very different political economies, pro-mobility sentiment is often the plurality, and in many countries it is overwhelming.
Q62 shifts from principle to lived experience and asks respondents how easy or difficult it is for people to cross international borders to work or trade. Here, the optimism collapses. Africa-wide, 65% say cross-border movement is difficult, while only 22% say it is easy. This suggests that Africans may endorse the idea of integration, but they do not experience the region as integrated.
Even in the “best case” countries in Figure 2, perceived ease is still a minority position. South Africa has the highest “easy” share at 35%, and Botswana follows at 34%. Cabo Verde and Kenya record 31%, with Namibia and Zambia at 30%. In other words, even at the top of the distribution, only about a third of people say cross-border movement is easy.
At the lower end of the chart, only 12% in Senegal say border crossings are easy, while 83% say they are difficult. Overall, many countries tell a consistent story of borders as friction, not flow. Even where people endorse free movement in principle, they are often describing an aspiration rather than a functioning reality.
For a G20 championing solidarity, and more importantly, for AfCFTA’s success, this gap between aspiration and experience shows integration is not delivered by declarations alone, but by the everyday realities of visas, paperwork, enforcement, transport, and the risks of moving while poor. Ubuntu cannot travel through never-ending queues.
The third question, Q66, brings the same openness debate into the economic realm: does development require relying on trade with the world, including opening borders to imports, or does it require relying on local production and protecting local producers from foreign competition? This is one of the most contested questions of the set: 50% of Africans support open trade for development, and 46% prefer protection. Compared to the clear pro-integration majority in Q61, trade openness provokes far more anxiety, which is political economy in action. Mobility can be framed as opportunity, but trade is immediately framed as competition.
The country-level results (Figure 3) show Uganda is the strongest pro-trade case, with 71% supporting open trade and only 26% prioritising protection. Zimbabwe (67% open, 30% protection), Niger (66% open, 33% protection), and Morocco (65% open, 34% protection) are also strongly pro-trade. But the distribution becomes opposite in a handful of countries. Tunisia again sits at the bottom, with only 25% supporting open trade, while 70% prefer protecting local producers. Senegal is similar (27% open, 72% protection). In southern Africa, the caution is notable – South Africa records 34% in support of open trade, with 57% preferring protection, while Botswana and Lesotho record 33% open and 63% protection.
Several countries hover around parity, which is politically significant because it implies that “openness” is not a settled consensus but a live, mobilisable cleavage. Kenya and Mozambique, for example, are close to evenly split (about 49% open versus 48% protection), and Tanzania and Sudan record around a 50% – 48% balance.
Finally, Q67 asks about a specific and concrete form of openness: whether only nationals should be allowed to trade in consumer goods, even at the cost of fewer goods or higher prices, or whether foreigners and foreign corporations should be permitted to operate retail shops to ensure wider choice and lower-cost goods. Continental results move back toward openness: 58% prefer allowing foreign retail participation, and 38% prefer restricting trade to nationals. This contrast with the previous question (Q66) matters. When openness is framed in terms of consumer welfare (choice and prices), Africans are markedly more supportive than when openness is framed in terms of producer competition.
Country patterns (Figure 4) show very high support for allowing foreigners to trade: Malawi leads at 74% (26% preferring restrictions), followed by Zimbabwe (73%) and Cabo Verde (72%). Mali and Morocco both record 71%. Even in Botswana and Lesotho, where the previous question showed a strong preference for protecting local producers, support for foreign retail participation is high (both around 62%). This suggests many people distinguish between protecting domestic production and accepting competitive retail markets that deliver affordable goods.
On the other end of the plot, Senegal is the clearest restriction outlier, with only 35% supporting foreign retail participation and 63% preferring restrictions. Ghana is also cautious, at 42% support versus 50% restriction. South Africa again sits in the middle, with 44% supporting allowing foreigners to trade and 46% preferring to restrict retail trade. Retail is often where tensions surface most visibly – through small business politics, urban competition, and narratives about who “belongs” in local markets. Thus, these splits also serve as proxies for social cohesion, trust in state enforcement, and the perceived fairness of competition.
Taken together, the four questions show that Africans broadly endorse the idea of regional free movement. They also overwhelmingly perceive cross-border mobility as difficult, highlighting a major implementation gap between regional ideals and everyday reality. When it comes to trade openness, the continent is nearly split, revealing the real political limits of “open borders” when livelihoods feel threatened. Finally, when openness is framed through consumer benefits (choice and lower prices), support rises again, suggesting that many Africans are pragmatic rather than doctrinaire: they are open when openness feels like opportunity and cautious when it feels like displacement.
For Africa, the G20, and other stakeholders, this shows that Ubuntu is not just rhetoric and that its first test is regional. Ordinary Africans want a more connected continent and, in many cases, a more open economy, but solidarity cannot be demanded from below when it is not delivered from above. Calls for a more inclusive, rules-based global order will ring hollow if they do not first translate into integration that works within Africa itself – felt in how people live, move, and trade. It is difficult to celebrate free movement or initiatives like the AfCFTA when borders remain experienced as obstacles.
Nnaemeka is a Senior Data Analyst at Good Governance Africa. He is also completing a PhD in Applied Data Science at the University of Johannesburg, funded by South Africa’s Department of Science, Technology and Innovation. Much of his research explores socio-political issues like human development, governance, bias, and disinformation, using data science. He has published research in scholarly journals like EPJ Data Science, Journal of Computational Social Science, Politeia, and The Africa Governance Papers. He has experience working as a Data Consultant at DataEQ Consulting and has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand both in South Africa.
