Table of Contents
TL;DR,
- The ADAPT pilot aims to unlock over $70 billion in additional annual trade by modernizing digital infrastructure and commerce across 55 African nations by 2035.
- Backed by the IOTA Foundation and the Tony Blair Institute, this initiative replaces fragmented border systems with a unified, open-source blockchain network to streamline logistics and identity verification.
- By integrating stablecoins and reducing cross-border payment costs to under 3%, the program creates a “single window” for trade that drastically cuts customs clearance times.
Blockchain technology is becoming mainstream, and pilot programs are being developed, and in 2026 the changes have finally arrived in Africa. The ADAPT 2035 pilot’s bold vision to make blockchain the foundation of tech intends to modernize how 55 African nations conduct cross-border commerce.
The pan-African project, backed by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the IOTA Foundation, the Tony Blair Institute, and the World Economic Forum, promises a single open network for identity, data, and money transfers.
Paper money dominated the 90s, mobile money dominated the early 2000s, and now, blockchain has taken the front seat.
The ADAPT Pilot; Building an Open-Source Foundation for 55 Nations
Blockchain has evolved over the years from Bitcoin to stablecoins to decentralized apps, but onboarding government systems proved a challenge, especially in Africa. 2000s, and ADAPT’s infrastructure interconnectivity is intentionally public, open-source, and modular—built to interoperate with national systems rather than replace them.
Its foundation leans on a digital public infrastructure blockchain approach to unify identity, documentation, and finance. Think of it as building a single system that enables every shipment, certificate, and invoice to travel as tamper-evident data across borders. A single AfCFTA digital infrastructure interconnecting over $70 billion in annual trade.
According to its official announcement, the ADAPT pilot is scheduled across 2025 to 2026, with a phased deployment beginning in Q1 2026 in Kenya, followed by Ghana and a third country yet to be confirmed. The full rollout begins in 2027 and continues through 2035.
Building the AfCFTA Digital Infrastructure from the Ground Up
ADAPT introduces self-sovereign identity using decentralized identifiers, issuing trusted, portable records to governments and businesses. Integrated with national ID systems such as Kenya’s eCitizen and Nigeria’s NIMC, it standardizes trust for compliance and onboarding.
Exporters, customs brokers, and regulators will have easy access to scheduled verifiable credentials and identities without scrapping investments already made in domestic infrastructure. domestic infrastructure.
Over time, customs and trade platforms can validate these credentials instantly, cutting days from clearance cycles. Because border agencies share a single source of truth, accepted verifiable credentials become the basis for streamlined risk assessment and release.
Trade documents, logistics milestones, and compliance proofs flow through smart contracts and shared registries. The system combines “single window” transparency with AI-driven compliance and IoT-based cargo tracking, providing real-time status and provenance.
Early trials with public authorities and enterprises in Kenya, Rwanda, the UK, and the Netherlands have already validated the model’s potential. Here, the IOTA blockchain African trade framework underpins data integrity so agencies and carriers coordinate off of the same ledger rather than reconciling paperwork post-facto.
Its final layer (finance), the ADAPT pilot consolidates mobile wallets, banks, stablecoins such as USDT, and digital currencies. So far, mobile money and stablecoins have taken precedence in most African countries.
Stablecoins have become the main topic for Africa after accounting for 43% of all crypto transactions. Nigeria alone captured more than 40% of sub-Saharan Africa’s stablecoin inflows last year, while Ethiopia and Zambia posted annual growth rates exceeding 100%.
Furthermore, the new system enables tokenization of physical commodities and minerals, the hallmark for blockchain adoption in Africa. Small and medium-sized enterprises, which currently face an $81 billion trade-finance gap, stand to benefit most from these innovations.
As Schiener noted;
“Border and customs clearing will go from weeks to hours, cross-border payments will be reduced to less than 3%, and exporters will get access to global trade finance liquidity.”
What success would look like for Africa
Chido Munyati, Head of Africa at the World Economic Forum, said, “3%.”
“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 digitalization of trade processes has the power to transform how African economies connect and collaborate.”
The ADAPT pilot focuses on three main aspects: tokenization, payments through stablecoins, and digitization of Africa’s intra-trade. But what would it mean for the continent? For adoption, it would be the single largest shift to the fourth industrial revolution. Traders won’t have to wait for hours or weeks to receive payment confirmations. A 90% drop to only 3–4 days means a faster process and cheaper alternatives. It would enable businesses to gain access to financing opportunities previously out of reach due to documentation barriers and trust deficits across fragmented systems.
The program aims to double intra-African trade by 2035, unlocking over $70 billion in additional annual trade and generating $23.6 billion in yearly economic gains from lower friction.
Its structure also ensures success with the AfCFTA: providing political will, the IOTA Foundation contributes public blockchain tooling, the Tony Blair Institute mobilizes on-the-ground delivery in over a dozen countries, and the World Economic Forum supports cross-sector collaboration.
As governance and legal frameworks mature alongside technical deployments, the digital public infrastructure blockchain can evolve in step with national systems and regional policy.
AfCFTA Secretary General Wamkele Mene stated:
This initiative serves as Africa’s blueprint for digitization and modernization of trade: a system that replaces fragmentation with integration, friction with trust, and inefficiency with scale.
Sir Tony Blair, Founder and Executive Chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said:
“My institute is proud to have worked with the AfCFTA Secretariat, the IOTA Foundation, and many public and private sector partners…. We will provide practical support from our teams in over 17 African countries and keep bringing in the best of global technology and finance.”
According to Dominik Schiener, Co-founder and Chair of the IOTA Foundation,
“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.”
