Pouemi classified African currencies into four levels of monetary sovereignty.

Evidence

If the newly independent African states had not been able to get rid of certain aspects of colonial rule, according to Pouemi, it was because they had not fully mastered the monetary instrument. In each country the situation was different, of course. On the continuum of monetary sovereignty, he distinguished four categories as far as the African countries were concerned. Firstly, those states that tried to manage their currencies well but suffered a hostile international economic context: the countries of the Global North tried to discourage the industrialisation of the Global South and to this end did not hesitate to exploit the IMF, which, according to Pouemi, had the tendency to ‘repress any government that tries to offer their country a minimum of wellbeing’. Secondly, those countries that possessed the monetary instrument but used it ill-advisedly. Internal ‘monetary repression’ or ‘self-repression’ (small presence of Africans in the banking sector, negative interest rates, self-financing practices and price controls, especially in the agricultural sector) were, in his opinion, a gangrene for economic progress. Thirdly, those states that employed ‘satellite currencies’, that is, national currencies functionally integrated with those of their former colonisers, through the free movement of capital and fixed exchange rates. The fourth and final case concerned those countries whose currencies were still administered on the basis of colonial principles and logics, and which, according to Pouemi, were by all means ‘colonial currencies’. The reference was mainly to the countries that used the CFA franc. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 191 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

An evolution occurred in 1967: with the restoration of full convertibility in France, the French franc became once again freely convertible into other currencies and with it, indirectly, also the CFA franc. Since then, the franc zone no longer exists as a common monetary defence zone, but can be considered an area of ‘monetary cooperation’, whose membership entails the opening of an ‘operations account’, which we will analyse in detail. Despite this shift in France’s exchange rate policy, the general functioning of the CFA system continues to be based on four interrelated principles: the fixed exchange rate, the free movement of capital, the free convertibility of the currency and the centralisation of the foreign exchange reserves. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 96 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Financing local food production would save rather than deplete African foreign reserves; Pouemi classified African monetary regimes into four types along a sovereignty continuum; Pouemi ranked African monetary sovereignty into four categories ending with colonial currencies — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 191 (+1 more)

Related

• Pouemi classified African monetary regimes into four types along a sovereignty continuum (similarity 0.96)
• Pouemi ranked African monetary sovereignty into four categories ending with colonial currencies (similarity 0.94)
• Colonial-era monetary system survived into independence as four interlocked principles (similarity 0.90)
• Monetary dependence underlies all other forms of African dependence (similarity 0.86)
• France alone preserved its monetary empire after its African colonies gained independence (similarity 0.85)
• The colonial vertical-integration trade model persists despite reoriented trading partners (similarity 0.84)
• France uniquely maintained its currency in politically independent countries (similarity 0.84)
• France granted African states nominal monetary rights while denying them in practice (similarity 0.84)
• Currency independence alone cannot succeed without a self-centred development model (similarity 0.84)
• The currency was the core mechanism of French control despite formal sovereignty. (similarity 0.83)
• African states have effectively paid the French Treasury to hold their reserves. (similarity 0.83)
• Former African colonies adopted national currencies upon independence. (similarity 0.83)
• Controlling currency was essential to the colonial appropriation of African riches (similarity 0.83)
• France uniquely maintained its monetary zone in Africa after independence (similarity 0.83)
• Post-colonial monetary unions survived only in the franc zone and small dependencies (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Pouemi ranked African monetary sovereignty into four categories ending with colonial currencies #corroborates (0.90) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 191
• Colonial-era monetary system survived into independence as four interlocked principles #responds-to (0.30) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 96