By Correspondent in Arusha

AFRICA’s Postal Sector Regulators and Designated Postal Operators convened here in Arusha yesterday and deliberated upon the “Reinventing/Reengineering the African Post: Regulation, Innovation and Investment for Inclusive Socio-Economic Development.”

The Pan African Postal Union (PAPU) high profile conference, which is part of the 43sup>rd/sup> PAPU Administrative Council, turned into a beehive of professional skills and experience exchanging platform through various presentations, which included “Empowering Africa’s Communities, Through the Post by Revolutionizing Instant Remittance in Africa- Any phone, Anywork and Any Country. This special mobile phone application involves all the 54 African Countries in purchase of different items and products with automated phone exchange of money from one currency to another designed by a UK based firm ‘bibimoney’. The bibimoney CEO, Shiraz Jess was born in Dar Es Salaam Tanzania.

Regulators and Designated Operators from over 40 PAPU Member States in Africa commended the United Republic of Tanzania through the Regulator, Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) led by the Director General Dr. Jabiri K. Bakari for transforming Tanzania into a hub of Postal Operations in Africa, where PAPU Head Quarters is hosted.

In his welcome remarks, the PAPU Secretary General (SG) Dr. Chief Chifundo Moyo commended the forum saying it was of paramount significance as experience sharing and knowledge transfer platform. As Albert Einstein said: “Knowledge is gained through experience.”

He said as you may recall,” The overarching purpose of this postal dialogue is to offer a formal, high-profile platform for sharing experiences on matters pertaining to the postal business, specifically postal activities and postal regulation, as well as to foster networking opportunities amongst all players”.

On the one hand, the African CEOs Forum discussions were focused on the theme: “Empowering Africa’s Future Through Postal Innovation: Integration, Logistics and Inclusive Socioeconomic Development in a Digital Era”. The theme was designed to ignite interest considering today's dynamic and ever-changing environment, marked by the emergence of new technologies and increasingly ICT-focused needs. The yesterday’s event was therefore, an incredible opportunity to reflect on how African postal services could fully seize the opportunities offered by new technologies to rethink the future of Africa’s beloved continent via the post through digital, innovative, adapted and inclusive postal services. Dr Chief Moyo added that at the same time, the issues deliberated upon fall squarely well into the broader context of achieving the set out by the African Union Agenda 2063 “the Africa We want” and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

On the other hand, the theme of 7sup>th/sup> forum was “Regulatory, Technical and Financial Challenges of Postal Service Financing, and Outlook”. This theme was relevant based on a survey conducted by the General Secretariat that revealed that 78% of Member States are unable to regularly offset additional costs incurred when providing universal postal services. Furthermore, only 7% of Member States have implemented cost accounting models in their entities, which is the gold standard for determining the net cost of universal postal service. This edition is therefore, an excellent opportunity for postal regulators and operators to seek concerted and appropriate solutions to prevent the postal divide and ensure the continuity of postal service provision to all populations, regardless of where they are located in our respective countries.