IOTA News: Sir Tony Blair Endorses IOTA’s TWIN Initiative for Africa’s Trade Transformation

• Sir Tony Blair has endorsed TWIN, a DLT-based digital trade solution deployed by IOTA and its partners, as the key to unlocking Africa’s trade potential.
• Blair says that IOTA’s technology can “replace outdated, paper-based processes with secure, digital alternatives using distributed-ledger technology (DLT).”

IOTA has made major strides over the past few years, transitioning from an IoT-only network to a thriving ecosystem that is impacting over a dozen industries. One of its biggest targets has been global trade, offering solutions that introduce transparency, speed and efficiency to the sector. Now, its efforts are being recognized by some of the world’s most influential people, the latest being Sir Tony Blair.

Blair endorsed the TWIN digital trade platform that IOTA launched alongside some of its partners, including the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation and the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade.

We are excited to see Sir Tony Blair putting his name and institute behind #TWIN and #IOTA's efforts to unlock Africa´s trade potential. Read all about this innovative digital infrastructure by IOTA, @GATFnews, @IOExport, @TradeMarkAfrica, @InstituteGC and @wef.…

— IOTA (@iota) October 30, 2024

TWIN (Trade Worldwide Information Network) is an evolution of the Trade and Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP), IOTA’s longstanding project that has been transforming cross-border trade, starting with the East African nation of Kenya. As we reported recently, IOTA founder Dominik Schiener teased that TLIP would have some exciting new dApps for tokenizing real-world assets across Africa and Asia.

Commenting on the endorsement, Dominik described it as “a true testament to what we have built and the impact it will have on the world.”

TWIN targets emerging markets—hence why it started in Kenya—enabling them to easily meet compliance and regulatory demands across the entire value and supply chains. This translates into lower costs and more exports for these countries, ultimately growing the economy and improving the quality of life.

Dominik added:

With TWIN we are connecting the world in new ways, and are reducing barriers and removing friction to make it possible to trade and exchange assets more efficiently. This is one of the most serious project to date where governments are using public Blockchain-based solutions in production. Built on IOTA.

IOTA Endorsed By Sir Tony Blair

In his ringing endorsement via a blog post, Blair described TWIN as “an innovative digital infrastructure capable of streamlining trade with and within Africa’s borders.”

Blair is a former UK politician who served as the country’s Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007. He is the second-longest-serving PM in post-war Britain after Margaret Thatcher. Since leaving office, he has been one of the world’s biggest symbols of change and development through the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

Blair says that TWIN allows African nations to build a “faster, cheaper and simpler” system that can support the full potential of the African Continental Free Trade Area, which aims to eliminate trading barriers among African nations.

Blair added:

TWIN will modernise trade by replacing outdated, paper-based processes with secure, digital alternatives using distributed-ledger technology (DLT), developed by the IOTA Foundation.