Experts urge urgent adoption of digitised trade systems

Trade stakeholders at the IOTA East Africa Web3 Innovation Summit have called for the urgent adoption of digitised trade systems, highlighting outdated paper-based processes, fragmented data systems, and a lack of trust in trade documentation as major barriers to unlocking the full potential of trade in Africa and globally.

The summit, held in Nairobi, brought together developers, technologists, trade professionals, and public sector leaders to explore how decentralized technologies, particularly IOTA’s TWIN (Trade and Logistics Information Network) and TLIP (Trade Logistics Information Pipeline), can drive a new era of trusted, digital-first global trade.

Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder and Chair of the IOTA Foundation, emphasized the critical need for trust-based digital infrastructure to support the next generation of trade systems.

"The internet has connected us, but it hasn’t built trust into how we share data," said Schiener. "You don’t always know where trade data is coming from or if it can be verified. With our technology, we’re creating the foundations for data you can trust, fast, secure, and cost-efficient. Kenya is central to this vision, and we’re excited to trial and scale new solutions from here."

Trade experts at the summit underscored the urgency of modernization. According to Erick Sirali, Digital Trade Director at TradeMark Africa, global trade still relies heavily on manual documentation, with around 4 billion paper documents in circulation today.

"In many countries, trade documents are not accepted unless physically signed," Sirali noted. "There are zero globally accepted standards for digital trade data exchange. Yet digitisation could unlock over 10 trillion dollars in additional global trade value."

Sirali explained that IOTA’s TWIN platform offers a compelling solution by using distributed ledger technology to enable real-time, trusted data sharing across supply chains, giving traders easier access to global markets.

The complexity of global trade was further broken down by Antony Magayu, Product Leader at the IOTA Foundation, who pointed to fragmented supply chains and poor data integrity as major obstacles.

"Supply chains involve many actors, each with their own systems and needs. Because there’s no unified way to share data, information is often trapped in silos," said Magayu. "Today, about 80 percent of supply chain data suffers from integrity issues. That’s a huge problem."

Magayu added that platforms like TWIN can solve these challenges by providing a shared digital infrastructure where all stakeholders including governments, freight companies, customs officials, and businesses can securely exchange verified trade data, improving efficiency, transparency, and trust.

The summit identified several core trade challenges that digitisation could address, including lost business opportunities due to unverifiable documentation, customs delays from non-standardized paperwork, and the exclusion of small businesses from international markets due to high compliance costs.

By leveraging emerging technologies such as distributed ledgers, summit participants agreed that the future of trade lies in building digital systems that are interoperable, transparent, and inclusive.

As Africa seeks to expand its role in global commerce, the message from Nairobi was clear. Digitising trade is not just a technological upgrade. It is a transformative step toward unlocking economic opportunity and resilience in the digital age.