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The UPU’s Consultative Committee (CC) membership provides unique opportunities connecting wider postal sector players with postal operators and other partners that might benefit from their solutions. Three CC members share how participating in two high-level events in the African region provided unparalleled insight into the region and their ability to help African Posts meet their digitization goals.
La version française à venirIn February, the UPU hosted the third edition of its Africa Postal Leaders Forum in Praia, Cabo Verde, bringing together executives from 45 African countries to discuss modernization and interoperability for the Post. In March, African postal leaders gathered again for the Southern African Postal Operators Association (SAPOA) Postal Forum to discuss driving economic growth and development through the postal network. Both events emphasized the importance of partnerships with the wider postal sector to drive innovation and digitization.
UPU Consultative Committee (CC) members received the exclusive opportunity to participate in both high-level events. Reason Solutions, a CC gold member specializing in postal automation solutions, and Avalara, a CC gold member specializing in cross-border solutions attended both forums. e-Boks, a CC bronze member providing secure, digital post box services, benefited from participation in the Africa Postal Leaders Forum.
Their presence provided an opportunity to meet new partners, learn more about the needs of postal operators in the region, and share how their solutions could help foster postal transformation across Africa.
Reaching African partners
Reason Solutions’ Chief Technology Officer Wilson George describes the meetings as an important means of connecting with regional partners to tailor the company’s technology accordingly. This includes not only regional cloud and infrastructure providers, logistics networks, customs technology companies, and mobile money platforms, but also development funding institutions and donor bodies looking to reach underserved populations with modern services.
“Our counter automation software is particularly relevant here, where modernizing physical post office touchpoints is often the first and most visible step in a broader digital transformation,” he says.
Avalara Senior Revenue Marketing Manager Stuart Daines explains that Africa is an important growth region for cross-border e-commerce.
“We hope to build practical partnerships with designated postal operators, regional postal unions, customs and regulatory stakeholders, ecommerce platforms, marketplaces, logistics providers, and other UPU Consultative Committee members. The objective is to co-create repeatable models that help African Posts better support merchants, improve cross-border delivery experiences, and make ecommerce more transparent for consumers,” he adds.
Driving digitization
Participants emphasized that their aim was to provide postal operators in Africa and beyond with fit-for-purpose solutions that would help them evolve in line with the changing postal business.
“Africa's postal operators face a unique combination of challenges: aging counter infrastructure, the rise of mobile-first consumers, underserved rural populations, and intense competition from private couriers,” says George.
He highlights how Reason Solutions’ counter automation software can deliver rapid transformation that’s visible to postal customers. Reason Solutions also offers a suite of tools – including e-commerce, mobile, tracking and AI-based customer service and back-office solutions – to help Posts build a trusted foundation.
“Africa's posts do not need to be disrupted by digital commerce – they need to become the infrastructure that digital commerce runs on. That is exactly the role our combined platform is designed to enable,” says George.
As global customs regulation rapidly changes, adding additional burden to postal operators trying to harness e-commerce opportunity, Daines explains that Avalara’s solution can help simplify tax and trade compliance. The solution helps posts classify goods, calculate customs duties and import taxes, support landed cost transparency at checkout, and ensure the right data is provided before items reach the border.
“For postal operators, these capabilities can help build trust with merchants and consumers by reducing surprises, delays, and manual compliance challenges,” he says.
Lessons learned
Participants also shared the insights they gained from the forums’ discussions.
e-Boks International Business Director, Dame Damevski, notes the potential to help African postal operators leapfrog.
“Across the continent, many postal operators are not constrained by decades of legacy infrastructure, creating unique possibilities to move directly into modern digital communication, identity and commerce ecosystems,” says Damevski. “The technology exists – the real accelerator is progressive policy and regulatory thinking.”
He added that, along with the right frameworks and strategic direction, governments would need to provide funding to enable leapfrogging.
George added that many of the operators he spoke with – even the most well-resourced – were looking for turnkey solutions to kick-start their modernization journey.
“There is widespread fatigue with long, expensive implementation cycles. Operators want platforms that are pre-integrated, proven elsewhere, and deployable quickly,” he said, adding this was especially true for AI solutions.
Daines added that the discussion highlighted a need for interoperable solutions that would serve not only Posts, but also merchants, customs authorities and customers.
“Interoperability should be viewed as a commercial enabler: when systems, data, and standards connect more effectively, merchants can sell with greater confidence and consumers can receive cross-border parcels with fewer surprises,” says Daines.
George also noted that CC members could work together to co-create interoperable solutions.
Benefits earned
These exclusive discussions provided a helpful basis develop business strategy and target necessary partnerships, they agreed.
“As a UPU CC member, these forums gave us valuable opportunities to engage directly with postal leaders, regulators, and private-sector partners on topics such as customs readiness, interoperability, ecommerce growth, data quality, and the role of technology in modernizing postal networks,” Daines summarizes.
Damevski added that the CC was a credible platform for all partners – from policymakers, to Posts, to the private sector – to engage and move modernization projects forward.
“Participation through the CC transformed what could have been a traditional conference into a series of meaningful conversations about real opportunities and real projects. The CC is evolving from a platform for dialogue into a platform for collaboration and action,” he says.
For his part, George reiterates the importance of sharing these experiences across the CC and the broader UPU.
“We are eager to contribute beyond our own commercial interests. Whether that means participating in UPU working groups, co-authoring standards inputs, sharing deployment learnings with operators in UPU's development programmes, or collaborating with fellow CC members on joint solutions, we are here as long-term participants in this community.”
This article first appeared in Union Postale Spring/Summer 2026.
Learn more about the UPU's Consultative Committee.