5 Kwacha

Zambia's 1976 note issue came during a period of acute economic stress — copper prices, which underpinned virtually the entire national revenue base, had collapsed sharply after the 1974 commodity peak. The government was already deep in the structural borrowing that would define the following decade, and inflation was beginning to erode real purchasing power at a rate the denomination structure was not designed to handle.

Thomas De La Rue's involvement was continuous across multiple Zambian series from independence onward, making this a fairly routine commission for the printer rather than a notable one.