By From Edwadr Qorro in Arusha
The official travel document also ranks
eighth in Africa, matching Kenya's passport which also scored the same rank in
the Henley Passport Index Report released last week.
According to the findings, the number of
countries that Tanzanians can visit without a visa, or obtain it on arrival
still stands at 72, just like in the previous index released in January 2021.
Both, Tanzania and Kenya's passports
emerged stronger than the travel documents in the remaining four EAC Partner
States.
Uganda emerged in position 76 with Rwanda,
Burundi, and South Sudan coming in at number 82, 92 and 99 respectively,
according to the report.
The report further notes that the
appearance late last year of the Omicron variant shone a light on a growing
divide in international mobility between wealthier countries and poor ones.
"Covid-19 and its interplay with
instability and inequality has highlighted and exacerbated the shocking
disparity in international mobility between wealthy developed nations and their
poorer counterparts," said the report.
According to the report, Japan's and
Singapore's passport are the best official travel documents to hold this year,
with each having access to 192 destinations around the world, while the Afghan
passport is the worst to carry around with, having only 26 destinations under
its name.
Christian Kaelin, who is also the chair of
Henley & Partners and creator of the passport index concept, suggests in
the report that opening up migration channels could be crucial for
post-pandemic recovery.
"Passports and visas are among the
most important instruments impacting on social inequality worldwide as they
determine opportunities for global mobility," he said. Added Mr Kaelin:
The borders within which we happen to be born, and the documents we are
entitled to hold, are no less arbitrary than our skin color. Wealthier states
need to encourage positive inward migration in an effort to help redistribute
and rebalance human and material resources worldwide.
The Henley Passport Index is the original
and most authoritative passport index, with historical data spanning 17 years.
The index and its contents are based on data provided by the International Air
Transport Authority (IATA) and supplemented, enhanced, and updated using
extensive in-house research and open-source online data.
The index includes 199 different passports
and 227 different travel destinations.
It ranks 199 passports ac- cording to the
number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa.
Updated quarterly, the Henley Passport
Index is the most robust and reliable index of its kind.