50 Kwacha

The P#28 50 Kwacha was issued during a period of serious economic deterioration in Zambia — copper prices, which had sustained the economy since independence, had collapsed through the late 1970s and into the 1980s, and by 1986 inflation was accelerating sharply. The note entered circulation as the government was simultaneously pursuing IMF austerity measures and then, under mass public protest, abandoning them. Food riots in December 1986 killed at least 15 people.

Thomas De La Rue had printed Zambian currency since the kwacha's introduction in 1968, making this a continuation of a long supply relationship rather than any new arrangement.