New platform, ADAPT, aims to modernize cross-border trade, cut costs and support full AfCFTA integration by 2035.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat has launched a digital infrastructure programme designed to reshape how goods, payments and data move across the continent. The Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade (ADAPT) initiative could double intra-African commerce by 2035 and generate $23.6 billion in annual economic gains. It was unveiled in Johannesburg as an open-source platform developed with the IOTA Foundation, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and the World Economic Forum.
AfCFTA Secretary General H.E. Wamkele Mene described ADAPT as a foundational shift, stating: “This initiative is the cornerstone of our vision to create an inclusive and integrated continental market. It is a system that replaces fragmentation with integration, friction with trust, and inefficiency with scale.”
Addressing Longstanding Trade Barriers
Intra-African trade remains at only 17 percent of total African trade, while traders face roughly $25 billion in annual payment transaction fees and further losses from document fraud. Current processes require up to 30 entities to exchange as many as 240 paper documents for a single shipment, creating bottlenecks across the trade ecosystem.
ADAPT replaces these procedures with distributed ledger technology from IOTA, enabling stablecoin-based instant payments, verifiable digital documents and interoperable digital identities. Its design addresses both financial and administrative friction, aiming to streamline workflows that traditionally consume time and increase costs for businesses.
Pilot Results in Kenya and Rwanda
Pilot deployments in Kenya and Rwanda have yielded measurable improvements. Kenyan exporters report saving about $400 monthly in printing and documentation costs, while freight forwarders have reduced manual paperwork by up to 60 percent. Border clearance times fell from six hours to around 30 minutes per shipment, and Kenya now records roughly 100,000 daily transactions on IOTA’s network tied to these flows.
Kenya’s previous system required border officials to log into 13 platforms to verify a shipment; ADAPT removes 60–70 percent of manual checks, cutting document retrieval from six to seven hours to approximately 30 minutes.
Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder and Chair of the IOTA Foundation, said: “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,” adding that the continent is “setting a standard for the rest of the world.”
A Phased Rollout to 2035
ADAPT will first launch in Kenya, Ghana and a yet-to-be-confirmed North African country. Beginning in 2026, the programme will expand in waves across AfCFTA economies, aiming to integrate all 55 member states by 2035.
Tony Blair emphasized the partnership’s breadth: “My Institute is proud to have worked with the AfCFTA Secretariat, IOTA Foundation and many public and private sector partners to co-design and implement this new ADAPT platform.” His organization will support implementation through teams in more than 17 African countries.
Building Sustainable, Inclusive Trade
The system relies upon several key technical features: cross-border digital identities, verifiable credentials anchored on distributed ledger technology, and AI tools that verify data consistency to reduce port delays. Tokenization will allow goods to be represented digitally, expanding access to trade finance, especially for SMEs. Stablecoins such as USDT enable low-cost transfers outside correspondent banking systems.
Chido Munyati of the World Economic Forum said of the system, “Trade inefficiencies remain one of the key barriers to business growth, yet the digitalization of trade processes has the power to transform how African economies connect and collaborate.”
For Africa, where intra-continental trade stood at 15 percent of total exports in 2024, ADAPT represents a path toward more efficient, transparent and sustainable commerce. With an open-source architecture ensuring data sovereignty, the initiative aims to support businesses of all sizes while reducing the environmental footprint of trade.
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