The African Leadership Centre (ALC) is pleased to announce our next (HYBRID) research seminar on Tuesday,3 December 2024, at 18:30 -GMT/21:30 EAT.
The session will host a seminar presentation titled, The Inequality of European Visa Regimes: The Implications for Africans
Venues:
– In-person – London (KINGS BLDG K0.20)
– Virtual – ZOOM
Abstract:
Visa regimes are deeply unequal, and African applicants are disproportionately affected by the staggering and unjust costs that they are forced to bear. The rejection rates for temporary visas for some of Africa’s largest economies, such as Nigeria and Ghana, are 40% or higher. Overall, the data we have analysed suggests that the lower a country’s GDP, the higher the European visa rejection rate for its citizens. Each year, European visa rejections cost €130M in non-refundable fees, with citizens of African and Asian countries being the worst affected. This is a ‘reverse remittance’ that we rarely hear about. Visa inequality is an often-untold story hidden under headlines of ‘mass migration’ in most mainstream media.
In this seminar, Marta Foresti, Founder and CEO of LAGO Collective and Visiting Senior Fellow at ODI Global, and award-winning Information Designer Federica Fragapane will discuss their work unveiling, monitoring, and analysing the data on visa applications to Schengen and the UK, the resulting costs and how they affect applicants from different regions, as well as their innovative approach to data visualization and storytelling through lived experiences of those directly affected by visa inequality. Achieng Akena will offer reflections on how these findings interact with ideas on the movement of people, focusing on Africans.
Relevant links:
- Data and sources on visa inequality
- Overview of the work/data:
- Data visualisations
Speakers:
Marta Foresti, Founder and CEO of LAGO Collective and Visiting Senior Fellow at ODI Global
Dr Federica Fragapane, Independent Information Designer
Chair:
Professor Eka Ikpe, Director, African Leadership Centre, King’s College London
Discussant:
Achieng Akena, Human Rights and Democracy Practitioner/Expert