The goal of a single market underpinned by a common African currency remains an ultimate objective of African unity. But wishing for a common African currency and achieving it are two very different things. Moin Siddiqi looks at the benefits and pitfalls of a common currency.

The concept of greater regional integration – in both political and economic affairs – was the long-term aim of the Organisation for African Unity (OAU), formed in 1963. Its successor, the African Union (AU), formed in 2002, retains this vision.

In August 2003, the Association of African Central Bank Governors announced plans to create a single African market – an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured – and also establish a common central bank that would manage a single African currency by 2021.

The AU’s twofold strategy entails first building genuine monetary unions in Africa’s five existing regional economic blocs. These regional trading communities, embracing both Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa, represent the first stage towards ‘full-blown’ economic and monetary union (EMU), similar to the creation of the EU’s single market in 1992.