For South Africa to be included in a single visa for all Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, all other participating countries would be required to align their visa policies with the current South African visa requirements.

This is according to the Department of Home Affairs Spokesman, Mayihlome Tshwete.

In an effort to market SADC as a tourism destination, 15 SADC member states signed the Protocol on the Development of Tourism in 1998. Since then, Zimbabwe and Zambia have launched a univisa, or Kaza visa, on November 28. South Africa has been excluded from stage two of the Kaza visa which will include Botswana, Namibia and Angola. However, countries to join the Kaza visa in stage three include, Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland.

Speaking to Tourism Update about the possibility of SA’s inclusion in the univisa, Tshwete said the participating countries would have to come to an agreement to create one visa.

However, Tshwete suggested that the alignment of regulations was not the biggest obstacle. “The main obstacle is having the same level of security for the different countries. You wouldn’t want a situation where a person gets a visa for a country with a weaker visa system and now, what could be a national security risk, is transferred to the other countries that are part of the agreement.”

South Africa’s new regulations, which officially took effect in October last year, require people travelling to SA on a visa to apply for the visa in person and to submit biometric data. In contrast, Zimbabwe and Zambia introduced e-visas in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Tourists travelling to the two countries can apply for visas online, while many nationals qualify for visas on arrival.