2000 Francs Church of St. Francis of Assisi

The Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Yaoundé, Cameroon, was built during the French colonial period and remains one of the more architecturally distinctive Catholic structures in Central Africa. This coin belongs to BEAC's ongoing series of high-relief silver issues incorporating glass elements — a format that has become a reliable revenue stream for the issuer through the numismatic export market rather than any domestic circulation purpose. The glass insert is produced separately and seated into the planchet during the striking process, a technique licensed from a small number of specialized European minting facilities.