Information technology has been nearly two decades since the globe saw the introduction of a new multinational currency bloc that would alter the residual of global ability. Just like the euro, a new currency is taking shape that tin compare in telescopic and vision. But this time, it'south happening in Africa, and shockingly it's not digital.

The West African Monetary and Economical Union state countries are currently in transition to adopt a new currency that will be used in a single market across a dozen or more W African countries — the Eco. Pegged to the euro, information technology is designed to be a new fiat currency replacing the electric current CFA Franc and volition be in circulation in many West African countries.

However, while it might compare in scope and vision, Eco's mere existence isn't enough to ensure a currency's success or power. Surprisingly, the Eco is a non-digital currency that is beingness launched to increment the efficiency of cross-border trade in West Africa. Yet in reality, it is still pegged to the euro, like its predecessor the CFA Franc. Rather than moving toward a true digital currency market and adopting African cryptocurrencies, the introduction of Eco appears to be a thinly veiled attempt at rexerting French colonial control over Francophone African economies with the launch of some other centralized currency from outside of the continent.

The origin of Eco

The WAEMU was established in 1994 by eight French-speaking countries in Western Africa. It is a collection of countries that have joined together in a customs union and currency union in guild to accelerate economic growth. Its origins lie in the shared promise of promoting economic integration in West Africa, which was enduring a stubborn period of economical growth into the 1990s.

The current members of WAEMU are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'ivoire, Republic of guinea-bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The primary goal of WAEMU and the currency spousal relationship under the CFA Franc is to create a common market, coordinate policies, and harmonize fiscal policy amid neighboring countries to promote security, stability and prosperity.

The CFA Franc has been around in some course or other since the stop of WWII, and has driven a persistent connection to French republic, their civilization and their economy. Its backing past the French authorities has immune the European power to maintain a level of influence in Westward African affairs, leading to the end of colonial control and extending the region well into the 21st century.

Modern history of francophone currency in Africa is dripping in blood. Three days after the outset President of Togo, Sylvanus Olympio, tried to print their ain currency in 1963 rather than the French sponsored ane, he was assassinated by an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire. The president of Republic of mali, Modiba Keita, launched a sovereign currency in 1962 and was deposed by an exFrench Strange Legionnaire, later dying in prison. Even recently, in 2022, President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote D'Ivoire was deposed by French Strange Legionnaires for considering the same thing, but to be released from European imprisonment without whatever proper charges or findings of guilt last year.

As the onetime Finance Government minister of France Pierre Moscovici said in 2022:

"We accept to speak the language of truth: African growth pulls united states along, its dynamism supports us and its vitality stimulates us — we need Africa."

Even the Italian Minister for Strange Affairs Luigi Di Maio was explicit about this issue in 2022 when he said:

"France above all, has never stopped colonising dozens of African countries. If it wasn't for Africa, France would rank 15th in the world economies not in the acme six."

Why Eco is doomed to fail

The Eco is simply another iteration of the same idea — storing the wealth and assets of African economies in European banks and putting that wealth on their balance sheets, thereby continuing to prop upwards European economies.

Unfortunately, the leaders in charge of creating the Eco are still proposing having it pegged to the euro and storing avails in a host of European banks, instead of merely in French republic. They oasis't gone far enough in their effort to let West Africa a true independence, rather than a connected subservience to the former colonial overlords.

The Eco is not but a new currency, but a strategic tool used by the French authorities and its allies to command erstwhile colonies. The large scandal in all of this — fifty years after the supposed independence of these countries — is that France still maintains a tight grip over the currencies of the countries that make up the CFA, and therefore the Eco. France will still print the Eco in France and circulate them back to Africa for use equally fiat currency, which means France will control the supply of currency in circulation and therefore (if need be) switch the economy off or on for "badly behaved" African nations.

The value of African reserve assets held in Paris are variously estimated at between $xx billion and $200 billion on negative interest rates. This means that African governments are paying to store their money in French republic. This hamstrings many governments and economies past limiting the liquidity of their cardinal banks, effectively blocking access to investment capital. Then, when not supporting France's own economy, the money is lent back to the francophone African nations at double-digit interest rates set by European rating agencies, impoverishing them further.

The CFA is a key component of the shadow neo-colonial dominion that has been pushing the Eco as a replacement, a currency that will still exist pegged to the Euro, and therefore, tied to its destiny.

Symbolic and ideological reasons aside, the implementation of the Eco is doomed for failure for a few reasons. First, the Eco is being designed as a currency for more nations than merely those who were using the CFA Franc. Currently, the plan is to include seven nations that are not current members of WAEMU into Eco'south orbit — a plan with cardinal challenges that will be hard to surpass (namely, confidence in the stability of many Due west African nations).

"The risks are political. The only way for the Eco to succeed is if all heads of country and government get involved. At this time, not all of them are taking buying of the projection. Some feel lukewarm virtually President Ouattara's leadership status on the matter. They are wondering how things volition turn out if he hands over the Côte d'Ivoire presidency in November 2022 to someone who has less feel in this expanse," said a leading financial marketplace analyst. Information technology is notable that it was Ouattara who was supported by the French when they deposed Gbagbo and wrongfully threw him in jail, where he saturday for eight years.

Additionally, there are other countries in different regions of Africa that speak French, just are non being included in these plans for a new currency. They have been excluded from consideration, as they take a separate currency market that is likewise backed up by the French government. This is just another example of how the French regime continues to exert its control into African affairs, hindering true pan-Africanism to accept root.

With the emergence of the Eco, information technology might announced that many of the governments pushing for a "liberation" from Africa might accept succeeded. Withal, in reality, switching from the CFA to the Eco is trading one dominant economical power for some other — in this case, Nigeria. In the current Economic Customs of Due west African States zone, Nigeria accounts for two-thirds of the Gross domestic product of the entire region and half the population.

Africans don't need a single-currency marketplace, they need crypto

Eco is but another imposition of non-African control over currency markets. What it does is maintain the bonds that dispense current economic structure and institutions beyond Africa. What Africa actually needs for success is full-scale adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, which can offer truthful freedom from Western central banks and influence from sometime colonizers.

What Africans do need — and indeed want — is for a societal wide adoption of cryptocurrencies and adoption of blockchain technologies to power 21st-century growth in Africa. Over the past twelvemonth, iii out of the superlative five countries where Bitcoin has been trending on Google Trends are located in Africa.

Cryptocurrencies tin too provide unparalleled autonomy and emancipation to countries that have historically — and currently — had their economies and central currencies controlled past powers outside of their lands. They tin can also provide benefits to consumers who want to control how they spend their coin without prior coordination with intermediaries like governments and banking institutions.

Simply put, cryptocurrencies are uniquely suited to help less-developed economies like those that brand up ECOWAS, due to the amount of rural, unconnected and unbanked populations of West Africa. It gives them instant access to money in a way that central banking and the money supply cannot provide.

For governments and those that elect them, cryptocurrencies can provide a much-needed level of transparency that they may have never been historically provided. In many West African countries, governments (and therefore economies) have been ruled past military juntas or dictatorships, leaving many noncombatant populations with little transparency nearly how their government and economic system function. Cryptocurrencies eliminate this past making their books attainable to anyone with an internet connexion.

In addition to this massive level of interest coming from Africa almost cryptocurrencies and blockchain, the continent is also uniquely poised demographically to achieve mass adoption among its modern consumers. According to Pew Inquiry Center, Africa will lead the world in population growth by the end of the century. In response to this tendency, national governments have go increasingly committed to fiscal inclusion initiatives in hopes of supporting futurity growth.

What's next?

Observers assume that the culling is betwixt a rock and a hard place: stiff centrally banked notes backed by global currencies versus nonfungible, volatile, local African money. Only that's not the exchange. It is, instead, a selection between the Devil and the deep blue body of water. It is increasingly likely that the much-troubled post-Brexit EU will falter (and with it, the euro) than go along immutably.

It will probably survive as a currency, but few think that the euro is only twenty years old, was trading at just $0.86 in 2003, was nigh twice this toll in 2008, and is at present dorsum at nearly a dollar. Information technology could yet fall to $0.50. Economies in Africa would fall with French republic'southward.

Better to cull the deep blue bounding main by cutting the euro out and choosing a future that looks toward Africa'southward digital and demographic destiny: A multi currency universe based on mutuality.

Currently, Africa has 200 million people aged betwixt 15 and 24, making Africa the continent with the youngest population in the earth. This specific historic period bracket represents the population that is aging into the workforce, and entering the economy for the first time. This population is uniquely predisposed to accept tech solutions and is seen equally an area for the economy to grow, given the digital payments and eastward-commerce sectors.

What Africans need is less focus on rigid institutions fix nigh a century ago by colonial powers. These institutions have failed to deliver lasting economic prosperity, and their new "solutions" are inadequate for the modern global economy. What is needed are decentralized and transparent systems that anyone can enter for admission to financial autonomy.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author's alone and do non necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Chris Cleverly, a barrister past profession, has made it his mission to help bring development mechanisms to Africa which can empower Africans to seize their ain destiny. His journey on this mission began during the 1990s when he attended King's Police force Higher and became a barrister. Later on graduating, he founded the Trafalgar Chambers in the U.G., and became the youngest head of chambers in over a century. In 2005, he founded the Fabricated In Africa Foundation, an organization he has guided to fulfill his dream of bringing systemic infrastructure modify to Africa. Today, he is CEO of Kamari, a blockchain project looking to build an ecosystem of mobile gaming and payments for one billion people across Africa.