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- Africa pushes forward digital trade with ADAPT and IOTA, boosting streamlined identity, data, and payment systems.
- Projected gains include reduced border delays, lower fees, and vast new trade opportunities across the continent.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat has launched a digital trade initiative called ADAPT. Designed to overhaul the continent’s trade infrastructure, ADAPT combines digital identity, secure data exchange, and integrated payment systems.
With backing from IOTA, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and the World Economic Forum, the plan aims to increase trade efficiency and transparency.
Africa currently accounts for only 17% of trade within its own borders, despite housing 1.5 billion people and a total GDP of over three trillion dollars. In contrast, intra-regional trade in Asia and Europe exceeds 60%. Weak digital infrastructure in Africa raises costs, creates delays, and causes problems for cross-border businesses.
According to AfCFTA Secretary General Wamkele Mene,
This initiative is the cornerstone of our vision to create an inclusive and integrated continental market. It is Africa’s blueprint for the digitisation and modernisation of trade: a system that replaces fragmentation with integration, friction with trust, and inefficiency with scale.
IOTA’s Role in Powering ADAPT Infrastructure
As a founding partner, IOTA supplies the blockchain infrastructure that powers ADAPT’s digital system. The project aims to link identity, data, and financial tools in a unified setup, giving governments and businesses a smoother path to interact, trade, and exchange value with fewer hurdles.
ADAPT will deploy three infrastructure layers: trusted digital identities using national systems like Nigeria’s NIMC and Kenya’s eCitizen, a unified data sharing platform for logistics and documentation, and a shared financial layer that links banks, mobile money, and digital currencies.
This will reduce the time for border clearance from 14 days to below three days and also bring down fees for cross-border transactions to below three percent.
Dominik Schiener, IOTA co-founder, commented,
This is a tremendous opportunity for Africa to leapfrog and build the most modern digital infrastructure in the world. We are proud to be a partner on this mission.
It is a great honor to work together with the talented team at the @AfCFTA. We are here to support the vision of H.E. Wamkele Mene to unite Africa with a public digital infrastructure for digital trade, payments and finance.
This is a tremendous opportunity for Africa to… https://t.co/LxKCFpqWNi
— Dominik Schiener (@DomSchiener) November 19, 2025
Economic Impact and Future Outlook
ADAPT is expected to produce 23.6 billion dollars each year through faster and lower-cost trade. It will also improve access to trade finance by addressing the $81 billion gap currently limiting small and medium-sized businesses.
The project could turn every part of cross-border trade into digital form in the future, from permits to payments, and build a system that is tamper-proof and based on open tech that can be verifiable by anyone.
The pilot phase will begin in 2025 across three countries, including Kenya and Ghana. Full continental expansion is planned through 2035, with input from public authorities, private firms, and funders.
IOTA’s prior work in Kenya and Rwanda, such as the TLIP and TWIN projects, shows early success in using digital tools to boost transparency and speed in trade.
Dominik Schiener added,
The success of using distributed ledger technology in pilot projects in Kenya and Rwanda has made it clear that Africa is ready to embrace these changes. The continent sets the standard for the rest of the world, unlocking immense economic potential and creating a much more level playing field in trade through new financing opportunities for millions of businesses across the continent.
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