Many of the countries of Anglophone Africa have undertaken devaluations of an even greater scale than that of the CFA Franc. They were, however, rather different. The devaluations of Anglophone Africa were primarily or entirely trade-liberalising, whereas that of the Franc Zone is primarily payments-improving. This can be seen most clearly in the case of the Nigerian devaluation of 1986. Prior to the devaluation the massive demand for foreign exchange was rationed to the available supply from export earnings through a series of trade restrictions, sometimes taking the form of import bans and more usually through limited access to foreign exchange licences. The Nigerian economy was thus already living within its means, albeit inefficiently. Those imports which were permitted into the economy sold at market-clearing prices, the difference between this and the cif import price at the official exchange rate accruing as rents to the distribution system and those controlling the allocation of permits. As a result, the devaluation neither reduced imports nor raised prices. In the year following a fourfold devaluation inflation was only around 5%. This has been the general pattern in Anglophone Africa, with devaluations enabling the removal of highly inefficient ways of rationing imports. Since the devaluations were usually part of policy packages supported by programme aid, the balance of payments often "deteriorated" following devaluation, though since this was intrinsic to the utilisation of the aid it should not be seen as a policy problem.

One important difference between payments-improving and trade-liberalising devaluations is their inflationary consequences. In the circumstances of the Franc zone some inflation was desirable. It reduced the real value of government domestic indebtedness and reduced real wages in those sectors where nominal wages were sticky downwards. Although trade-liberalising devaluations are not inflationary, Anglophone Africa had no need of devaluation-induced inflation. The underlying inflation rate had already been so high due to the absence of fiscal restraints that governments and other public entities had effectively defaulted on their domestic liabilities, and any nominal rigidities in the labour market had either been eroded or resulted in real wages below equilibrium levels. For example, in Uganda the post office savings bank had kept much of its assets in Sterling while its liabilities were denominated in Ugandan shillings at low or zero nominal interest rates. Over the course of thirty years the liabilities declined to less than 5% of the value of the assets. Inflation also eroded real wages in the public sector to levels at which it was not possible to live, in the process changing the nature of the public payroll from the purchase of labour services to a transfer scheme. Thus, Anglophone Africa needed devaluation neither for balance of payments improvement, nor to change the real value of wage and debt contracts.

One aspect which the Anglophone devaluations had in common with that of the CFA Franc is their fiscal impact. This depends upon whether the governments are net buyers or sellers of foreign exchange. Since most governments either taxed trade heavily or received a net aid inflow which they sold domestically, the fiscal impact would normally be positive, permitting increased government expenditure and reduced deficits. For example, over a decade of devaluations in Ghana the government was able to triple revenue as a share of GDP, while in Nigeria the 1986 devaluation was so revenue-enhancing that almost the entire fall in income as a result of the crash in the world oil price was shifted to the private sector.