The APPG for Africa together with AFFORD and the APPG for Malawi are gathering evidence and information on following questions:

1) What is your experience of supporting African nationals in applying for visas to attend conferences / events / training sessions in the UK?

2) How many times have you supported African nationals to apply for a UK visa, of whatever type?

3) How many were rejected or approved? What were the most common grounds for refusal given? How many were granted, but too late to allow the participant to attend?

4) For those that reapplied, how many were subsequently granted visas? What circumstances changed in their application? Did they resubmit with additional information? And did the visa arrive in time for them to attend the event?

6) Have you seen any evidence of inconsistency in decision-making regarding visa applications?

7) What do you understand to be the main barriers to submitting successful visa applications for African nationals? And can you estimate how many might have decided not to visit the UK because of the difficulty of obtaining a visa?

Please note that numerically presented evidence is particularly valuable.

Written statements should be submitted as soon as possible to Hetty Bailey on baileyh@parliament.uk but no later than Tuesday 29th January 2019. (NB- Statements should be succinct, refer to the questions above, be no longer than 1500 words and in Word document format).