By:
Nana Appiah Acquaye
African
postal operators have been urged to shift away from benchmarking their
transformation strategies on global e-commerce giants and instead focus on
building systems grounded in local operational realities and community-based
networks.
The
call was made by Isaac GNAMBA-YAO, Member of the Regulatory Council of the
Autorité de Régulation des TIC (ARTCI), during a virtual intervention from
Abidjan at the Forum of the Postal Operations Council of the Universal Postal
Union (UPU).
GNAMBA-YAO,
who previously served as Director General of La Poste de Côte d’Ivoire and
Chairman of the UPU Council of Administration, argued that traditional
approaches that model African postal reforms on European systems are
increasingly outdated and misaligned with current market realities.
He
noted that conventional letter-based postal services across Africa have
experienced significant structural decline, with consumers now relying more on
digital platforms, mobile money systems, and informal logistics networks for
everyday communication and delivery services.
According
to him, the most relevant competitive pressure facing African postal
institutions does not come from global logistics companies, but from informal,
community-based transport systems that are deeply embedded in local trust
networks.
He
emphasized that the primary strength of African postal services lies in
institutional trust, geographic reach, and the ability to provide verifiable
proof of delivery in environments where formal legal and transactional
certainty remains essential.
The
commentary further stressed that postal transformation should prioritise
organizational and social innovation over purely technological investment,
highlighting hybrid delivery models, decentralised service points, and
community-based logistics structures as more appropriate solutions for African
contexts.
It
also pointed to the continued importance of physical proof mechanisms such as
receipts, stamps, and signatures, which remain widely trusted across both rural
and urban populations.
GNAMBA-YAO
called for the expansion of hyper-localised postal services, including
financial transactions, document certification, utility payments, and the
formalisation of informal delivery systems, positioning postal institutions as
key service anchors within local economies.
He
concluded that African postal services will achieve greater relevance and
competitiveness by leveraging their unique structural advantages rather than
attempting to replicate global digital logistics models, with trust, proximity,
and network depth identified as critical success factors.
