Morocco, Kenya and Nigeria are the first countries selected to implement the pilot “Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade Initiative”. ADAPT integrates seamless payments, secure data access, and digital identities into a single digital public infrastructure, enabling African countries to trade with greater security, transparency, and efficiency.
The initiative was launched by the AfCFTA Secretariat to support the development of interoperable digital trade systems across the continent. It is building a shared digital infrastructure for intra-African trade.
The three countries were selected through a rigorous process that assessed political commitment, regulatory readiness, digital infrastructure maturity, and private sector engagement.
African trade faces deep structural barriers: fragmented regulatory regimes, the absence of standardized digital identity systems, payment networks that are expensive and slow, limited cross-border data sharing, and a trade finance gap estimated at $ 100 billion annually that leaves SMEs (estimated at up to90 % of African businesses underserved. These challenges compound one another, driving up logistics costs and cross-border payment fees. The result is a continent whose vast trade potential is consistently constrained by the absence of shared, trusted digital infrastructure.
ADAPT is designed to address these challenges directly, and with Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria confirmed as the first pilot countries, implementation is now underway.
Implementation of ADAPT means getting to work on the concrete building blocks of digital trade. In each pilot country, this involves establishing ADAPT Country Implementation Forums, integrating digital identity systems and payment rails, and aligning national infrastructure with continental interoperability standards – built on TWIN, the open digital trade infrastructure that underpins ADAPT.
The immediate focus will be on enabling live cross-border data exchange and digitizing trade documentation at source, replacing paper-based processes with verified, tamper-proof digital records. The three countries will also begin testing regulatory frameworks for digital currencies, including stable coins, laying the groundwork for faster, cheaper cross-border settlement.
