United Nations Radio

The Universal Postal Union says the increased use of e-mail and the internet as tools of communication was not a threat to the survival of traditional postal services.

The organisation says the challenge facing postal service providers was how to make their services more responsive to digital technology.

Patrick Maigua reports from Geneva:

Over 2,000 delegated have converged in Geneva for the 24th edition of the Universal Postal Congress. The congress is expected to draw up strategies aimed at improving the quality of postal services and especially how to respond to the challenge posed by digital technology.

UPU is of the view that postal services are still far from being obsolete despite the rapid expansion of the internet and e-commerce. Paul Donohoe from UPU says digitization of postal services will improve on service delivery and expand the range of businesses postal service providers can offer.

"Majority of post offices are located where the people are and in many of the underserved or unconnected communities, the postal office is a point of contact. So this modernisation of the postal industry creates opportunity for information society developments to take occur in the areas of e-government, in the areas of tele-medicine, in areas of enabling the small and medium enterprises and entrepreneurs in these developing communities to gain access to the internet to gain access to commerce and to start to play a role on electronic commerce and e-business space. Business these days is e-business and the post in its moving from physical to digital services is becoming e-postal."

UPU says some 3 per cent of the population worldwide still do not have access to basic postal services, that number is as high as 12 per cent in Africa. Between 2005 and 2006 the global postal service traffic amounted to 439.1 billion items with nearly 99 per cent of the traffic taken up by domestic service.

Patrick Maigua UN Radio Geneva.

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