Africa-USA NOW Podcast Series

Africa-USA NOW Podcast Series: Africa and the Dollar

Current Events at the intersection of Africa and the U.S.

A recent agreement between India and 18 countries, including 6 African nations, announced the creation of the financial infrastructure to trade in their respective currencies instead of using an intermediary, such as the US dollar. Since the end of WWII, the dollar has been the dominant currency for international trade and finance. This has been a enormously beneficial de facto standard for the US, but at the same time has created problems for countries with smaller currency volumes. With the emergence of other major economies and increasing trade relationships that don’t include the US, many central banks are increasingly looking to see how they can transition away from a reliance on the US dollar.