ADI Foundation is expanding its footprint across Africa, positioning Abu Dhabi as a trusted partner in building digital public infrastructure. A new agreement with the African Continental Free Trade Area aims to support cross-border payments and settlement. But who will fund the infrastructure and are we creating more foreign dependencies? Joining me to unpack this is Dr. Svyatoslav Senyuta, Chief Business Officer at ADI Foundation. Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to be here.
ADI Foundation is positioning itself as the partner for African Digital Public Infrastructure and your recent work led to an agreement with the AfCFTA. Talk me through that deal and what it actually means in practice.
It is not a simple deal — it is actually a joint venture between the AfCFTA Secretariat and ADI Foundation to build the Africa Digital Sovereign Stack for the whole continent. We can proudly say this is an extremely ambitious project bringing continental blockchain infrastructure for all 54 AfCFTA member countries — literally covering the whole continent. The AfCFTA leadership under His Excellency did remarkable work bringing to life the digital trade protocol — that was a titanic effort to create the legal and regulatory foundation. What they were lacking after that legal framework was the rails and how to make it happen. We are proud to build that infrastructure. And the scale is enormous. The primary objective is to power Pan-African trade and help Africa trade globally in a much more open and seamless way.
The fragmentation problem in Africa is well documented. What does it actually cost the continent today?
Fragmentation is the number one challenge — 54 countries, 42 currencies, enormous complexity. If you look at West Africa, you have two regions that both use the franc as their currency. One covers eight markets, the other seven. To swap one franc for the other, you are losing between 2 and 7% — on the same currency — because both are pegged to the Euro. Africa as a continent loses $100 billion annually just from inefficiencies — whether currency friction, trade document costs, or settlement delays. Our North Star is to bring that cost down by 90%.
How will you practically achieve that, and who is paying for the infrastructure?
There will be investment from ADI Foundation as a nonprofit, but no African governments will be paying for this infrastructure. We will also be mobilising private capital into the system because it will require significant investment into the continent. All this infrastructure will be owned by African governments — principles of national sovereignty and security are being preserved. That gives the continent confidence that it is built specifically for them. And if you model the macroeconomic impact through the GDP trajectory with versus without the Africa Digital Sovereign Stack, the surplus generated is $900 billion.
What does this actually look like for a family wanting to send money across a border?
Stage one covers eight markets defined by the AfCFTA — that will be completed in 2028. Then we scale to 22 countries and eventually the full continent. We already have a partnership with M-Pesa, which covers 60 million people across the continent — we can leverage that. We also have a partnership with Equity Group, where Equity Bank will be leveraging ADI Foundation technology and the stablecoin ecosystem across multiple markets in East Africa. You will hear many more announcements shortly on how we are expanding across the continent from multiple angles.
What I really like about this is that it is almost Abu Dhabi to the world without creating foreign dependencies.
Absolutely. The model is specifically focused on this. We are a nonprofit trying to mobilise capital in a very transparent, open way. When we pass over this technology to African governments, any other third parties will be able to openly build on top of it. We are trying to solve the foundational problems — the big, heavy lifting. And once that ecosystem is built, it will be open to all players and participants in the market to create additional value for communities.
Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing it with us.
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
