20 Nakfa

The 2012 date on this note marks a reissue of the series first introduced in 1997, the year the nakfa itself was launched — named after the northern town that served as a strategic base for the Eritrean People's Liberation Front during the thirty-year independence war. The nakfa replaced the Ethiopian birr at par, a deliberately political act that completed Eritrea's monetary separation from Ethiopia following the 1993 independence referendum.

Giesecke & Devrient have handled Eritrean banknote production since the currency's inception, an arrangement that has remained stable despite the country's increasing international isolation through the 2000s.