African Currencies

North Africa Currencies

North Africa's currencies split into two families: dinars (Algeria, Libya, Tunisia) and pounds (Egypt, Sudan), plus Morocco's dirham. Unlike West and Central Africa, the region has no shared currency — each country issues and manages its own, even though a monetary union has occasionally been discussed under the Arab Maghreb Union framework (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia) without ever being implemented. The Libyan dinar and Tunisian dinar are consistently among the strongest currencies in Africa by nominal exchange rate, needing only a handful of units to equal one US dollar, while Sudan's pound has depreciated sharply amid ongoing conflict and economic crisis.

North Africa Currency Comparison

Why North Africa never adopted a shared currency

The Arab Maghreb Union, formed in 1989 by Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, included long-term goals of economic and monetary integration similar to the EU. Political tensions between member states — particularly the long-closed Algeria–Morocco border — have stalled meaningful progress for decades, and each country has continued to manage its own currency and monetary policy independently. Egypt and Sudan, both members of the Arab League but not the Arab Maghreb Union, have never been part of these discussions and manage entirely separate pound-based systems.

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