20 Ngwee Bank of Zambia

Zambia's mid-1980s coinage was issued against a backdrop of acute economic deterioration — the copper price collapse of the early 1980s devastated a national economy that depended on copper exports for the vast majority of its foreign exchange earnings. By 1985, the kwacha had lost much of its purchasing power and the IMF's structural adjustment conditions were generating street protests. Coins of this period saw limited secondary circulation as informal barter and foreign currency increasingly displaced official coinage in daily transactions.