African Leaders Who Wanted to Create a Single African Currency

Executive Summary: From Kwame Nkrumah’s post-independence dreams to Paul Kagame’s 2025 resource-backed “Afro” pitch, the idea of a single African currency has echoed across every region of the continent. While the African Union’s 1991 Abuja Treaty set 2028 as the deadline for an African Central Bank and a pan-African currency, only regional prototypes—ECOWAS’s “Eco”, EAC’s shilling union and the existing CFA franc zones—have moved from blueprint to partial implementation. This article profiles the presidents, prime ministers and policy architects who have championed the one-money vision, unpacks why progress remains slow, and reveals what investors should watch before the “Afro” becomes a wallet reality.

1. The Dreamers: Heads of State Who Pushed for One Money

  • Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana, 1957-1966): First to call for a continental government and a unified currency to break colonial monetary control.
  • Muammar Gaddafi (Libya, 1969-2011): Used oil wealth to lobby for the “Gold Dinar” and financed AU summit debates on a single African currency.
  • Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria, 1999-2007): Signed the 1991 Abuja Treaty; still urges ECOWAS to fast-track the “Eco” at every Afreximbank AGM.
  • Alassane Ouattara (Côte d’Ivoire): Engineered the 2019 CFA-franc reform that renamed it “Eco” and cut French board seats—first step toward West-Africa-wide currency.
  • Paul Kagame (Rwanda): In 2025 publicly demanded a resource-backed “Afro” to reduce dollar dependence and boost intra-African trade.

2. Road-Map: From Abuja 1991 to 2028 AU Deadline

The African Union bases its plan on the African Monetary Union (AMU)—a six-stage pathway that ends with the African Central Bank (ACB) issuing a single African currency sometimes dubbed the “Afro” or “Afriq”. The 1991 Abuja Treaty set 2028 as the final milestone; the 1999 Sirte Declaration accelerated the timetable, calling for the ACB by 2020. Neither deadline has been met, but the framework still guides continental policy.

3. Regional Pilots: How Close Is the “Eco”?

ECOWAS (15 West-African states) adopted the name “Eco” in 2019 and promised launch in 2020; after multiple postponements leaders reaffirmed a 2027 roll-out in June 2021. Yet in September 2024 the same bloc suspended the initiative indefinitely, citing post-coup exits by Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and failure to meet convergence criteria (inflation < 5 %, deficit < 3 %, debt < 70 %). Only Togo currently passes all five tests.

4. Other Regional Currency Zones

Region Currency Name Status 2025
West Africa (8 UEMOA states) West African CFA franc → “Eco” Rename complete; ECB Dakar issues; euro-peg retained
Central Africa (6 CEMAC states) Central African CFA franc No rename; Bank of Central African States issues; euro-peg retained
East African Community EAC shilling (planned) Protocol signed 2013; deadline 2024 missed; new target 2031
Southern Africa (SADC) “SADC Afro” (proposed) Concept stage; blocked by South-African rand dominance

5. Paul Kagame’s 2025 “Afro” Proposal: A Resource-Backed Reset

At the 2024 AU Mid-Year Summit, Rwandan President Paul Kagame called for a single African currency backed by continental natural resources—gold, cobalt, oil and critical minerals. Kagame argued that Africa loses USD 5 billion yearly in conversion costs to third-party currencies and must “own its value” to escape dollar hegemony. His proposal mirrors Gaddafi’s Gold Dinar but adds modern tokenisation ideas, suggesting the “Afro” could be issued both as physical cash and as a CBDC on an African Union blockchain.

6. Why the Dream Keeps Stalling

  • Macro Divergence: Inflation ranges from 2 % (Senegal) to 45 % (Sudan).
  • Political Risk: Coups, sanctions and exit threats (e.g., Mali, Burkina Faso) shatter convergence timelines.
  • Loss of Seigniorage: Governments fear surrendering national central-bank profits.
  • Foreign-Debt Mismatch: 80 % of African sovereign debt is still denominated in USD/EUR; switching to an “Afro” could trigger balance-sheet shocks.
  • Institutional Capacity: The African Central Bank exists only on paper; no staff, no vault, no payment rails.

7. 2030 Scenarios: What Investors Should Watch

  1. “Eco-Lite” Launch 2027: A two-speed West Africa where Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Togo, Ghana and Nigeria float a currency basket first.
  2. EAC Shilling 2031: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi replace national notes with a blockchain-verified CBDC.
  3. Resource-Backed Afro 2035: AU summit approves Kagame’s plan; 1 Afro = 1 mg gold + 1 kWh solar token; trading on AfCFTA blockchain.
  4. Status-Quo: CFA zones survive, rand dominance continues, AfCFTA invoices still in USD—but central banks quietly build CBDC bridges.

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Key Take-Away

Every decade a new cohort of African presidents revives the single-currency dream—yet the only functioning unions remain the colonial-era CFA zones. For the “Afro” to escape conference-hall purgatory, leaders must first harmonise inflation, debt and governance metrics. Investors should track ECOWAS convergence tests in 2026 and watch whether Kagame’s resource-backed pitch graduates from speech to white paper. If those stars align, the African Central Bank could finally issue a wallet-ready Afro before 2035, transforming intra-African trade and cutting the continent’s $5 billion annual currency-conversion loss.
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