Economists and currency watchers were caught unawares on December 22 by sweeping revisions to the west African CFA franc, in response to increasingly heated protests across the region in recent years.
Under changes announced in Côte d’Ivoire by president Alassane Ouattara and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, the currency – used in the West African Economic and Monetary Union region, or Waemu, by Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo – will be renamed the ‘eco’ later in 2020.
