Hello Venturer,
When you hit rock bottom, it often serves as an important moment, signifying a profound readiness to rebuild from the ground up. Zimbabwe's economic crisis, marked by hyperinflation and currency depreciation, has brought the nation to such a critical juncture. In the face of relentless challenges, including the persistent rise in inflation and currency devaluation, Zimbabwe has reached a tipping point.
Zimbabwe has been going through an economic crisis. The Nation's inflation remains high as local currency depreciation intensifies. In February 2024, annual inflation increased for the fourth consecutive month, reflecting the sharp depreciation of the local currency at both the official and parallel foreign exchange markets.
To address this crisis and pave a path toward economic stability, Zimbabwe is embarking on a bold initiative: replacing its faltering local currency with a new, innovative solution. This “structured currency,” called Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG), will be backed by a combination of foreign currencies and gold reserves held by the central bank.
This week we look at Zimbabwe's bold decision to replace its collapsing currency with a gold-backed one.
Boluwatife Areola
Content Developer, Ventures Africa
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I do like receiving your newsletter and I am pleased to see this essay addressing Zimbabwe's currency situation and its resolution to solve it. This challenge is not unique to Zimbabwe, it is a challenge for the entire continent partitioned into states or territories not by Africans but by former foreign countries less endowed with wealth and have been extracting the wealth from these partitioned territories they once colonized. Africa urgently needs a single currency to serve the financial well-being not of 10-15% of its population but 100%!! like every other continent has been doing for a long time. Africa is not poor because its people are, but because foreigners are impoverishing it. Gold as a sovereign currency circulated for use by the trading populations and consumption by continental citizens is mandatory. Africa has 1 billion indigenous consumers. it does not need to trade its currency with any other foreign currency that would be less in value than an African gold currency--even a single unit. Nor should it be pegged with a foreign currency for its validity. Trade items of value, such as, coffee,cocoa,gold, titanium,cotten textiles are extracted from our African continent to gloss the foreign stock markets. Rather than imitate or copy foreign playbooks for financial stability, let us concretize and use the continent's own incredible blue print of gold consumption for finance, trade and socio-cultural stability. Lest this invites incredulitiy, let us marvel at how wealthy Africans have been, so, they gold-covered King Tutankhamun's casket-- in his time, that reflects a tradition of wealth and prosperity. An African gold monetary system exclusive of misleading foreign rules and regulations is imperative at this time. -- "Songana"