African trade set for digital revolution with new infrastructure launch
Adapt addresses longstanding inefficiencies in African trade, where a single shipment requires 30 entities and 240 paper documents, leading to high costs and delays.
By implementing an open-source, decentralised digital trade ecosystem, Adapt will allow national and industry systems to interact seamlessly, ensuring secure verification of trade transactions, payments, and documentation.
Economic impact
The programme targets $23.6bn in annual efficiency gains, the potential to double intra-African trade by 2035, unlock over $70bn in additional trade value, and cut border clearance times by more than 50%.
Technology at the core
Adapt will leverage distributed ledger technology (starting with IOTA DLT), artificial intelligence, and tokenisation to:
• Enable cross-border recognition of digital identities for supply chain actors
• Create auditable, tamper-proof trade documentation
• Ensure regulatory compliance with AI verification
• Facilitate access to trade finance through tokenised goods
Pilot success in Kenya and Rwanda
Pilot projects have already demonstrated practical results. In Kenya, fully digitised trade documents cut manual validation by 60-70%, reduced document retrieval time from six-seven hours to 30 minutes, and saved exporters around $400 per month per consignment.
Scaling Across Africa
The platform will first roll out programmes in Kenya, Ghana, and other early adopter countries before expanding to all AfCFTA and African Union member states starting in 2026.
H.E. Wamkele Mene, AfCFTA secretary general: "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.
"For too long, African businesses have contended with multiple systems, repetitive compliance processes, and slow cross-border logistics. Adapt is designed to change this fundamentally."
Tony Blair, founder and executive chairman, Tony Blair Institute: "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.
"We will provide practical support from our teams in over 17 African countries and keep bringing in the best of global technology and finance, to ensure Africa’s single digital market is African in its roots and global in its reach."
Chido Munyati, head of Africa, World Economic Forum: "ADAPT marks a major milestone in our efforts to advance free trade and economic development across Africa. Trade inefficiencies remain one of the key barriers to business growth, yet the digitalisation of trade processes has the power to transform how African economies connect and collaborate."
Dominik Schiener, co-founder and chair, IOTA Foundation: "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."