IOTA before the first major African rollout: Kenya is aiming for the Q2 start
- IOTA is apparently about to go live in Kenya in the second quarter.
- The launch would be a first step for IOTA’s digital trading strategy in Africa.
According to the IOTA Foundation, Kenya is on the verge of taking a decisive step towards fully digitalized trade processing. After a steering committee meeting of the TWIN Foundation in Nairobi explained Jens Munch Lund-Nielsen, Head of Global Trade & Supply Chains at the IOTA Foundation:
“This week we met in Nairobi for the TWIN Foundation Steering Committee with our partners Dave Beer, Philippe Isler, Tim Stekkinger, Frank Matsaert MBE, Marco Forgione MCIEx, Erick Sirali, Dr. Anja Raden, Yves Jobin and Wambui Wanjiku.”
The participants at the meeting were convinced of the system and declared the second quarter as the target to go live with the pilot project:
“We heard contributions from the Kenya Trade Network Agency (KenTrade) (operator of the central trading portal), the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), the Kenya Crop Protection Service Kephis and the freight forwarding company AiRFLOW. The unanimous opinion was: the system is working and everyone is looking forward to having it operational in the second quarter.”
This would turn a multi-year pilot project into an operational rollout for IOTA for the first time. Lund-Nielsen wrote in a LinkedIn post on February 26 that Kenya is “on track to become the world’s most digital frontier,” further stating:
“Once launched, Kenya will be a global leader as all government-issued trade documents will be digitized, verifiable and shareable with foreign partners. As electronic trade documents (ETDs) become more widespread, Kenyan traders will be the first to operate fully digitized, end-to-end supply chains.”
IOTA’s path to the first major Africa rollout
The goal of the project is to connect TLIP and TWIN. According to TradeMark Africa, TLIP, the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline, was founded together with IOTA in 2016. The system was tested on flower exports from Nairobi to the Netherlands. So far, six documents and releases from several authorities have had to be coordinated there. TLIP eliminates exactly these paper-based processes.
TWIN is the next step. TWIN is an open, decentralized infrastructure for verifiable real-time data in global supply chains. While TLIP is aimed at improving specific trade processes in East Africa, TWIN forms the technological base layer.
The TWIN Foundation was officially launched on May 8, 2025 in Lusaka. In addition to IOTA, the six founding organizations also include TradeMark Africa, the World Economic Forum and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
The fact that Kenya is now about to go live fits into a broader Africa strategy that has become much more concrete in recent months. In June 2025, IOTA and the Tony Blair Institute signed a memorandum of understanding to develop trusted digital public infrastructure around commerce, identity and data sharing. The collaboration begins in Africa but is intended to expand worldwide.
The biggest step to date followed in November 2025 with ADAPT. Led by the AfCFTA Secretariat, the initiative is supported by IOTA, the Tony Blair Institute and the World Economic Forum and aims to bring together identity, trade structure and financial flows on the African continent. The rollout started with pilot projects in Kenya and Ghana and is expected to integrate all 55 countries in the free trade zone by 2035.
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