A less-is-more growth strategy for Africa

Doing so would most likely encourage trade, as happened in Europe with the arrival of the euro, and could help contain inflation - which is always good for growth - by imposing international discipline on monetary policy.

The African Union is now aiming at pooling all the continent's currencies into a single currency by 2028. In the meantime, several regional monetary unions are on the drawing board, in addition to the two monetary unions that already exist, one de jure and the other de facto.