Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia Citizens Can Now Enter Each Others’ Territory With National ID Cards
On September 15, 2025, an X user @Joe_Bassey made a claim that Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia have come to an agreement that citizens of these 3 nations can travel to these countries using only their national ID cards. The post had a 36-second video showing the Presidents of Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia giving speeches, alongside an image of a purported African passport labeled “United African States, One Africa,” with the caption, “Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia has come to an agreement that citizens of these 3 nations can travel between these countries using only their national ID card”.
When this report was published, this claim had about 142,400 views and over 5,300 replies, reposts, quotes, likes and bookmarks. In the comment, @MazakaThePriest said “Who the hell travels to that country because even its citizens run and never look back? Goodluck Botswana nani lapho eNamibia🤣🤣🤣” and @TMontshiwa57047 wrote “We as South Africa we reject this unequivocally”.
VERIFICATION
In February 2023, Botswana and Namibia signed and implemented an agreement that allows their citizens to use national identity cards for cross-border travel instead of passports.This agreement was officially launched in at the Mamuno/Trans-Kalahari border post and later extended to other border points, including Ngoma, Impalila Island, and Mohembo, with the aim to facilitating free movement of people between the two countries.
By December 2023, Zimbabwe and Botswana presidents agreed in principle that their citizens should be able to travel between the two countries using national identity documents only. Relevant ministries were directed to work out the modalities of the agreement.
However, there is still no signed Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) in place. Botswana’s Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Annah Mokgethi, clarified in Parliament that the use of IDs with Zimbabwe “had not yet been formalised. There was also public opposition to the proposed arrangement with Zimbabwe, which has slowed down efforts. Since then, discussions have not been formalised and there is no agreement between Botswana and Zimbabwe that allows citizens to cross the border using only national identity cards.
Meanwhile, the passport image shown in the video is from 2016 when the African Union announced an AU passport with the long-term goal of enabling visa-free travel for all African citizens across the continent.
However, the general rollout for ordinary citizens has been repeatedly delayed and is not yet available. The AU passport is one of the projects under Agenda 2063.
CONCLUSION
The claim that Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia have an agreement allowing citizens to travel using only national ID cards is MISLEADING. Only Botswana and Namibia have implemented such an arrangement. Zimbabwe is not yet part of the agreement, although discussions have taken place.
