The African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat is collaborating with the IOTA Foundation and others to optimize goods transportation using stablecoins.

PANews, November 17 news, reported by CoinDesk, the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has jointly launched a digital trade initiative with the IOTA Foundation, placing stablecoin-based settlement at the core of reshaping the way goods cross borders in Africa. An announcement released on Monday showed that the “African Digital Trade Access and Public Infrastructure Program” (ADAPT), established in collaboration with the Tony Blair Institute and the World Economic Forum (WEF), will build shared, Open Source digital public infrastructure for the 55 member countries of Africa. The initiative aims to achieve instant cross-border payments, verifiable digital trade documents, and interoperable digital identity verification. Although the initiative is positioned as a modernization upgrade of trade processes, stakeholders indicate that stablecoins (especially USDT) are expected to become the key driving force behind its widespread adoption. The ADAPT program will first launch in Kenya, Ghana, and a third country to be confirmed (possibly located in North Africa), and then expand to the whole of Africa starting in 2026, aiming to integrate all 55 AfCFTA member countries by 2035. AfCFTA anticipates that digitization will double the scale of intra-African trade, unlocking $70 billion in trade value and generating an annual economic benefit of $23.6 billion.