The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
***
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: All right. For those online, we will start in about five minutes. We're just settling up on‑site. Thank you.
>> PAUL DONOHOE: Okay. So good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to this important panel session on digital divides and digital inclusion. My name is Paul Donohoe. I'm from the universal postal unit, from the UPU, and I have the pleasure of introducing there discussion today. We are joined by a wished group of speakers from a variety of regions and backgrounds from understand a the world who will all share with us some valuable insights on this critical topic for digital inclusion in the digital divide. I'm also joined today in co‑moderating this with my colleague Tracy Hackshaw. So, Tracy, introduce yourself, please.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you, Paul. Welcome, and good morning. Good evening. Gone, wherever you are in the world. As Paul said, my name is Tracy Hackshaw. I'm also with the universal Postal Union, the UPU, and I am responsible for the dock post initiative which is a secure trusted top‑level domain for the postal sector, and we are looking to give you some great information about what we do and what we plan to do and have ‑‑ hear from you as well about what you'd like us to do for you. So welcome. And let's have some good discussion this morning. Thank you.
>> PAUL DONOHOE: , thanks, Tracy. And, yes, together we are to ensure this session is interactive, engaging and informative for both our online and offline participants, the people in the room here today. We're joined by a number of people online from around the world as well, which is great to see. We also have an online moderator, who's joining us from Switzerland. He has got up early this morning, Juan Moroni, who is digital inclusion, digital transformation expert from the UPU in Switzerland as well. So good morning, Juan.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: I see Juan is chatting.
>> PAUL DONOHOE: Super. Which is great because that is a good way to highlight the interactive nature of this session. Juan will be monitoring the online chat and ensuring that all participants have the opportunity to ask questions and share their thoughts and so Juan will be taking that focus and we will come back to you, Juan, during the session to see how the online discussion is going. So, before we dive into the discussion today, I'd like to introduce our esteemed panel of speakers. Each of them brings a unique perspective to the table. First of all, on my right, Mr. Rodney Taylor, who is the Secretary‑General of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union. Rodney will be well known to many of you with his activities in the IGF. So welcome, Rodney. And we're also joined by Mr. Talant Sultanov, the co‑founder and board member of the Internet Society in the Kyrgyz chapter. So welcome, Talant. And we're honoured to your participation in the discussion today. What we really want to do is have this to be an interactive and informative session as Tracy mentioned. So the discussion today involves around the transformative potential of the postal sector in fostering digital inclusion, particularly looking at the digital divide that still exists in many communities and in the underserved communities where there are citizens and small businesses that are still disconnected, missing out on this fabulous opportunity that the digital economy is bringing.
We have been almost 20 years since the initial discussions on the information society began, and today still, there is this significant divide in rural communities and underserved parts of the population are still missing out on these benefits that we all take for granted, particularly in major capital cities and in developed countries around the world.
So, with our panellists today, we want to explore this topic, share experiences, understand some of the challenges and where there can be solutions and examples of solutions that have helped bring the disadvantaged and underserved communities into the digital economy.
And particularly considering that there is this new ongoing discussion within the GDC and within the WISIS around meaningful connectivity and what does meaningful connectivity really mean in this area, particularly serving underserved communities? Then we hope to explore a number of different possibilities and a number of different examples in that area today. So.
So, before we get into the first session, I'll just give a bit of highlight of the role that the postal sector plays in the digital economy. So, I'll pull up some slides. The title of this session today is The Postal Network as a vehicle for digital inclusion. And as I mentioned, The Postal Network is a network that exists in over 650,000 locations around the world, and most communities in the world have access to postal ‑‑ a post office and postal services. There are millions of employees within The Postal Network as well that have daily contact with people, and I think that this is an important element about ensuring digital inclusion. It's not just about the technology. It's not just about the connectivity. It's also about the human touch, particularly in underserved communities and in the underprivileged parts of society.
And this week, actually, on Monday of this week, was world post day, and we celebrated that around the world, and the UN Secretary‑General's message on world post day, I think, is very telling and very relevant for our discussions this week. Where he says that "the postal system has long served as a cornerstone of connectivity across the globe." And that has been for thousands of years. And "in today's digital world, that fundamental role remains key. The poetal network is immense and extends to many of the remotest communities. We can maximize its reach to help boost digital inclusion and drive progress on the Sustainable Development Goals," particularly.!" the theme of this year's world post day together for trust calls on governments, the private sector and the development partners to do exactly that." And we were very horned to have the UN Secretary‑General also recognised the UPU for its leadership in the new Connect.post initiative, which aims to ensure that every post office has sufficient access to the Internet by 2030.
The concept of this project is connect a post, connect a community. And connect the people in that community and connect the businesses in that community to benefit from the digital society.
Now this comes from, although as I mentioned, in WSIS, the WSIS outcome documents, the declaration of principles, the Geneva Plan of Action, the Tunis agenda, recognise that the postal network has an important role to play and is an important infrastructure for the information economy. And there was a number of references in those outcome documents to encourage governments and other stakeholders to establish sustainable community access centres in post offices, to design specific training programmes in the use of ICTs, to educate the postal workers and help postal workers educate the communities that they serve in ICTs.
And then also to affirm the commitment to build ICT capacities to improve access and use of postal networks and services. So these are all extract references from the WSIS declaration Plan of Action and the Tunis agenda. So this discussion has been a long discussion over the last 20 years, but still today, we see that, of the 650,000 post offices that are located in communities around the world, there are still a significant number of post offices that are not connected. And so that's a strong message that we want to bring out of this panel session is the call to action to governments to continue to integrate the post into their digital plans and consider the important role of the post plays in facilitating the connection between the people and businesses and the digital economy. And so, we hope in this session today to explore a number of ideas and options around that. And to see where this can go for the coming Decade of Action towards 2030.
Before I hand over to our panel, I also just want to reflect on some strong learnings that we've had in the last few years due to the pandemic. The pandemic has really accelerated a number of initiatives and no more than also in the postal network. The postal network was binding societies during the pandemic. It was servicing the citizens and the small businesses. It was one of the public infrastructures that was strengthened during the pandemic to deliver a variety of services to the people who were locked away, isolated, due to the restrictions of the pandemic.
Post offices were delivering aid to communities through financial aid. There was also postal network used to deliver physical medical supplies to communities so that they could be protected against this terrible pandemic. Postal workers continued to service the communities during the pandemic as they do during war and conflict areas as well. And so, this was reinforced during the pandemic as the post was delivering services and distributing government aid and taking part in digital transformation initiatives including working with other government agencies to deliver government services, digital government services, digital financial services to the communities. And again, we're talking about really the reach out into the underserved communities as well, which is where the real value of these services can exist.
And also supporting small or medium enterprises who were very hardly ‑‑ very much affected by the pandemic in terms of their ability to trade. People were locked down so they weren't having access through traditional physical markets. And so, many SMAs transitioned to digital companies and the post was there to facilitate that transition to digital companies and acted as a hub for exchange of goods and financial services for SMAs so that they could continue to trade online. And I think we'll hear about some of those opportunities in today's panel as well.
So, I will now hand over to Tracy, my co‑moderator, who can help facilitate the discussion during the panel, as we go through the variety of experts that we have. Thanks, Tracy.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you, Paul. And thanks for that wonderful introduction and that historical background. It gives us good context for today's session.
So, as we move through the Open Forum, as Paul indicated, we'd like to address stakeholders directly on the opportunities that are available through the postal sector but by giving practical examples and some key studies, which is why we have assembled this particular Group of Experts. So I'd like to start with SG Rodney Taylor, who, as we indicated, is the Caribbean Telecommunications Union leader. He's had a lot of experience doing work in the Caribbean and in particular in his home country of Barbados especially willing the post. So that's very helpful for our discussion.
So I'd like to ask Rodney, what do you think, based on your experience, could be a great opportunity for the postal sector, especially in countries like the Caribbean, the Pacific, other underserved regions for further inclusion? Have you seen opportunities there? Have you experienced any particular references that we could use? And maybe give us an idea of what we can do to ‑‑ based on those experiences, probably improve of or advise going forward in that regard. Rodney, over to you.
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: Thank you very much, Tracy. Hello, everyone. Happy to be part of this discussion this morning. And to share my experience from a small state in Barbados, but also provide at the regional level within the Caribbean community. So the Internet was supposed to be the death of postal services, right? Nobody was sending mail anymore. Everything was electronic mail, and, therefore, post offices would be banished from the face of the earth.
(Laughter).
It is far from what has happened. There's been, of course, the growth of e‑commerce, the need to get goods into people's hands, and that is only ‑‑ I mean, Paul made a good in terms of the pandemic and what happened and how posts were able to facilitate the continuation of public service delivery.
In Barbados in particular, there was an initiative where the Ministry of Digital transformation, Ministry of Innovation and science technology work with the Ministry of Home affairs, I think, falls under home affairs, but with the Barbados postal service to deliver credentials in particular, the driver's license where you could apply to have your? Driver's license renewed, and then within 24 hours, delivered to your home or your office. That was one of the big success stories, because that ‑‑ you compare that with having to take time off from work to go to a government office to spend an hour or two in the line, pay cash, and then return another day to collect that license or wait, or wait. In some cases, you had to wait.
So all of that, the productivity gains from simply that simple implementation and collaboration with the postal service, and then that was expanded to the delivery of the pass as well. Right? And, of course, that has now cascaded into other services, but to me it's a no‑brainer. That specific aspect of partnering with the government to especially the ministries of digital transformation to support the initiatives at the national transformation initiatives at the national level and to make life easier for citizens.
I remember once I was told we don't know where the government offices are. We don't go. So I can't tell you where to find Ministry of ‑‑ you know the licensing authority. I don't know. So and that's what we want. We want to keep people out of government offices. It is simply inefficient. It is a waste of time. I've seen where there have been lines even before the government office opens at 5:00 in the morning. People want to be first in the queue so they can get their license or whatever and head to work. This is really not how we do things in a digital economy.
With respect to the service bureaus, again, this is something, a discussion that was maybe 25 years or Mo more where we talked about a one‑stop shop for government. This is an opportunity to ‑‑ because the post offices are in communities that I should be able to put on my short pants, walk down the street and interact if I don't have the necessary skills, the digital skills, to interact that I can go to my friendly neighbourhood post office and have someone help me. In Barbados, already, the post office helps persons with the application for US visas. Those persons who don't have a computer, don't have a credit card or simply don't have the skills to do it. And if you've ever had to apply for a US visa online, it requires a degree in itself. It requires you ‑‑ so many information. It takes at least an hour, maybe more, two hours sometimes.
And so, you can understand the ‑‑ it may be daunting for some people. So, if you can have that hand‑holding for citizens that need that help, and that goes across the board.
And there's ‑‑ ultimately, want also citizens don't have to ‑‑ like I said, find this department and then find that other department and find a third department to simply access government services. If they can go to one convenient location and interact, then it makes all the sense in the world.
So for me, it's a no‑brainer, and the thing is to be able to get that message across and build awareness the level of the policy‑makers so they understand that these are not two separate and distinct discussions we're having. We're talking about how can we work together to support the implementation of the national digital transformation, working along with post to make life easier for our citizens. Thank you.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you very much, Mr. Taylor. And what you've said, I think, brings to the floor the possibilities that we can look at utilizing the fa ‑‑ the facilitates that the ‑‑ facilities that the post office already has, the people are already there so we can tap into resources that are there as well as perhaps to think bigger in how we see the post offices in our jurisdictions, our own countries. There are opportunities there, I believe, for new ways of doing things, doing business, new ways of connecting people, and new ways of actually ensuring that those who are not currently in the digital economy can get that first touch, that first feel. People that don't have PC at home, connectivity at home, maybe they can use the post offices to do that.
I Tunis agenda touched on connectivity which is my segue now to my other colleague to my left, Talent, from the Kyrgyz chapter of the Internet Society. Talant has a lot of experience in community networks actually and this is something that I believe is another aspect of the connectivity challenge we need to look at, the connectivity in the broader perspective, connectivity. So when you look at the post offices, especially in rural, far‑flung areas, there could be challenges in terms of connectivity, in terms of infrastructure as a whole, electricity, etc. So we talk about using these post offices as a legal, but if they're not connected, then this argument falls flat on its face. So Talant is here to help us understand what's actually possible given the limited results many countries have to extend connectivity and what can be done given his experience in doing such a thing in a small state, a landlock state, but in a state that I think has done it successfully.
Talant over to you.
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Thanks so much, Tracy, for the segue into the presentation. I'll try to share my screen and I've prepared a couple of slides. I don't see ‑‑ I work in the IT, I ‑‑
(Laughter).
I struggle every time still.
(Laughter).
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Here?
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Yeah, the PowerPoint or pdf.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Do you have a video?
>> TALANT SULTANOV: No, no video.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: There you go.
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Can we see it? Uh‑huh. Excellent, yeah. And Paul mentioned that this is going to be an interactive session, so I tried to do it interactive as well. This is just a picture that shows what is Kyrgyz. We just ‑‑ we heard the perspective of a small island, developing nations, and in this presentation, I would like to show you the small landlocked mountainous countries. I think we have probably similar challenges and also other kind of challenges that we deal and I'm very glad ‑‑ I always wanted to meet colleagues in small developing island nations to learn how to promote our countries and maybe work together so ‑‑ to demonstrate the situation.
And when I talk about interactivity, I prepared just a very small quiz. And soon will be Christmas, if you don't celebrate Christmas, the New Year like in Kirk Stan. This is a question I'd like to ask you, and if you respond correctly, I have chocolate from central Asia. And if somebody responds from online, we will send it by post.
(Laughter).
And we will see how long it will take the chocolate to get.
(Laughter).
So any guesses? I'll give you a hint, if you'd like. Hmm?
>> North pole.
>> TALANT SULTANOV: North pole? One option. Any other ideas?
>> (?).
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Lap land. Good. So one hint, it's ‑‑ because I come from central Asia, it's related to central Asia.
(Off microphone).
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Yeah.
(Laughter).
(Off microphone).
(Laughter).
(off mic).
>> TALANT SULTANOV: I think we are all correct that Santa should be living in every part of the world to be able to deliver, and you to actually, there were scientists I think in Norway or Sweden where lapland is close. So it's not us saying that, and they calculated that for Santa to be able to deliver all this mail to all the children around the world, he should be living in Kyrgyzstan.
(Laughter).
Can you imagine? And that would allow him to get everywhere at the same time.
And it's actually kind of also in reality the next slide also shows that central Asia and this is a map of Eurasia was actually the centre of economic gravity in the world for many centuries, and, of course, then with the industrial revolution and information evolution, it shifted towards Europe, to the west, and now the economists are predicting maybe it will shift back. And I was thinking why central Asia was able to become the centre of economic gravity in the world and probably because of the ‑‑ we had the suecoat, and there was a very effective postal system running, the ancient pony express. So you could get from Mongolia to Europe in the very, very short time, and this pony express was considered to be one of the fastest and the most extensive postal networks in the world at the time.
And I think it inspired the modern postal services too. So, when I was looking Wikipedia today, pony express, it doesn't talk about ancient pony express. It talks about pony express in the US. So very little mention of the ancient one. So I think it also shows how Internet is still geared towards more western content and we need to work on that as well to bring more kind of information there.
And there is a book, if you have a chance, maybe you will read it, by Dr. Fred Starr. He lives in Washington, D.C., big central Asia scholar. And he titled his book "the lost enlightenment." He said central Asia was the centre of cultural scientific postal experience, but at some point, it all went away and what happened? And can we bring it back? And that's one of my, I guess, small goals is to make central Asia again part of the global economy. And I think as Rodney mentioned, with the Internet, e‑commerce, all this becomes possible, thanks to the new technologies. And, but of course, in central Asia, we have major challenges. We are landlocked. One of the experts who is actually in the IGF today, he also coined the sanctions locked, and I added we also brain drained. So this makes it really very difficult to bring Internet connectivity and to improve the postal connectivity too because, as you can see, in this map, very long distances, deserts, mountains. So, I wouldn't envy the people who work in the postal service to deliver ‑‑ to be delivering goods to and from our region. And I think that digitalisation could actually make lives easier.
And the goal of our session and of this initiative is to connect every postal office to the Internet by 2030. And this resonated very much with the activity that's already happening at the moment is to connect every school in the world to the Internet by 2030. It's initiative by ITU and UNICEF called GIGA. And I think here we could actually join forces because there are schools and post offices are the hubs in many of the villages. So whatever happens in the village people gather either in the schools, like if it's elections or provision of the government services or in the post ‑‑ or in the postal office. So, we need to together work to connect all these villages to the Internet.
And that's what we've been doing, and of course, the realities on the ground are very difficult. So, sometimes you have to go through very difficult mountainous terrain or there is no electricity if you want to bring Internet to the village or cables break and you have to put local some inventions like plastic bottle over a broken cable so it doesn't break again, or there is no transport, so you still use horses to deliver goods back and forth.
So, we've been working a lot on connecting villaging to the Internet, and what we realise the later and the speakers earlier mentioned that ‑‑ and Paul said it's not only about infrastructure. It's about actually people's ‑‑ human kind of aspects and skills. And we've been working a lot on increasing digital literacy and skills of communities in rural areas so they would be able to take advantage of opportunities that digitalisation brings. So, training them how to use e‑government services, actually training their government officials it in local areas on e‑government services so that then they can become trainers for the local communities. E‑commerce, so, we have entrepreneurs in villages who produce local good but 33 don't know how to market them ‑‑ they don't know how to market them on the Internet and they don't know how to use the existing systems to the logistic supply chains to deliver the products.
And FinTech services too.
So this was kind of just a brief introduction to what we do and how we could collaborate together and probably during the discussion we can share more of the information. Thank you.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you very much, Talant. This slide that you're on, don't move it. I like that. That's a really interesting ‑‑ girls first, rural first, mobile first, local language first, and green first. I think that's really important for our discussion so that we recognise here that there are quite a slew of underserved communities in this space that we need to serve. And again, this is something about inclusion. This is inclusion. It's about including those who are not included. Simple as that.
And to that extent, the list you have here summarizes that quite nicely. We could add to this, of course, person with disabilities, we could add to this any number of groups. Let's not target any group or another. So, one of the questions we need to get to now, I think, and I think Paul is going to jump in here, how do we really drive this forward now that we've talked about some of these cases. How do you think we can drive this forward? What can countries do specifically to ensure that we improve connectivity in these communities? What can the post do? How can we utilize the post to enable this? You mentioned that the schools are doing it. There's a project. I think I'm going to toss to Paul now that's connect Connect.post, Paul mentioned earlier, that looks at this. There's some work going on now I believe in the Caribbean regarding these and will be spreading to other regions soon.
So maybe, Paul, perhaps you can give us some insights on what the UPU is doing to make this happen.
>> PAUL DONOHOE: Yeah, thanks, Tracy. And I want to pick up on some of the points that have just been made by both Rodney and Talant because I think they're very relevant for the discussion around digital inclusion and just thinking about the asset that exists in this ‑‑ in the postal network and how it has been used in a number of countries.
We have seen particularly the issue of local language that you mentioned, Talant is a critical issue in those communities where we have this predominant or this dominance of English on the Internet in a way that that excludes a lot of of the people in the under served communities. And this is where governments have seen the benefit of the postal network as I've mentioned. There's 650,000 post offices. They are staffed by people. Those people are in contact with the local population and the local citizens and the local businesses every day in their local language.
And we have examples in all regions where the postal service has been a critical human hand to these communities. In the area of e‑commerce that you mentioned, e‑commerce is almost like the new Santa Claus.
(Laughter).
E‑commerce is the 21st Century Santa Claus because when people are online, they expect to have things delivered to them. And they expect those things to be delivered relatively quickly.
We have a lot of great examples in postal delivery where a postcard or a letter arrives one year later addressed to Paul in Bern, Switzerland. There's these great stories around how the post has been able to deliver mail in that way. But now in this world of e‑commerce, that's not enough. There needs to be a much more intelligent, digitally capable net than can support e‑commerce deliveries as people expect them, just like the children expect Santa Claus to deliver off this Christmas list, we now expect to have those e‑commerce deliveries come to us.
And also, businesses would like to participate from these communities, would like to participate. They are producing local artifacts, for example, which can be very popular and can generate a lot of income, which will bring sustainability to these communities. We talk about meaningful connectivity. We need to also bring sustainability into the meaningful connectivity discussion. Sustainability of the resource which is providing the connectivity and how that brings sustainability of communities.
And post offices have developed solutions in this area. Community access centres in Zimbabwe are a good example where, Zim post, or the Zimbabwe postal service, is providing community access centres. They are providing digitaltal literacy services to these communities so people can come to the post office and other partners of the post who provide digital literacy training, who provide digital capability training are using the post office facility as a location for training the local community.
So this complements the delivery of the connectivity to bring capacity building to those communities. Posts are, obviously, delivery partners so they can deliver the mobile phones to these communities. They can work with governments to deliver affordable mobile phones, which is a critical policy issue in a number of countries where we heard yesterday in the main hall the issue of affordability of mobile devices or of devices to connect to thent and. Again, the integration of posting to policy‑makers discussions and Interpolcys for digital inclusion can bring affordability to these devices through those communities. It can also bring affordable delivery of connection points. Post offices can be Wi‑Fi hubs, connectivity you hades in those communities. And again in the case of Zimbabwe, we have examples there of Zim post as community access centre providing local network connectivity. In that area.
And also, for SMEs, SMEs who want to be able to sell online, as Talant mentioned, this digital world provides them with that opportunity, but they lack the understanding. They lack the skills on how to sell online. And so, we have seen examples in Asia where the post has partnered with eBay, for example. And the post office has provided eBay training through local entrepreneurs who are making these artifacts and making these goods that are interesting to sell online. So, on a Thursday afternoon, at 4:00, eBay comes to the post office. They organise a community education, and train local entrepreneurs on how to be able to sell online. The post office is the hub for this information access, but it is also the gateway to exchange the goods and also a lot of financial services. Financial services in the post is a strong line of business and that's, obviously, important for e‑commerce as well.
So I think some of these issues of access and local language services from the post are an important part of helping the digital inclusion through the postal network.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you very much, Paul. I just want to remind everyone, this is an Open Forum. So, once you are able to gather your thoughts and perhaps pose any comments, feedback or questions, feel free to step to the mic. Both online and on‑site in this room. And we will recognise you and take your feedback in. So I'm going to wait ‑‑ while we wait for any of that to come in, I'm going to now continue with our chat.
So one of the things, Paul, you just ended on this issue of local language. In terms of indigenous groups, see if that works with both of you, there has been a discussion around inclusion regarding the heritage, eheritage, something called eheritage. And there has been discussion in the past about whether or not these access centres, these telecentres can play a role there because in many cases, they are ‑‑ they are separate villages, separate communes in some cases, depending on how the state deals with indigenous peoples, some cases integrated, but there are very few case studies of where that has been able to be placed online, curated by the communities themselves and sustained over a period of time. There seems to be an opportunity here to utilize this ‑‑ the GDC has one of these vehicles for this. Posts coming in and saying, let's play a Lowell, some conditional connectivity. Let's look at this as one of those potential inclusion topics.
So, I'm going to ask, perhaps, Talant first, then maybe Rodney, of his knowledge of the Caribbean and indigenous peoples. What do you think about that and how that can work? So Talant, you go first.
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Thanks so much, Tracy. Actually, this reminds me of two interesting stories I wanted to share. One following up Paul's intervention. When we connected first come into network in Kyrgyzstan, it's a village in the mountainous area. The very first beneficiary of the Internet was local post office ‑‑ post office officer. Before Internet connectivity, what he had to do is every week at least once a week, he had to go to a nearby town, which was over the mountains, to check if there was mail for the villagers. He couldn't ‑‑ he didn't have ‑‑ there is no mobile connectivity, no Internet, so he didn't know if there was and any letters or packages or not, maybe passports for the local villagers. But in the winter, the road would be so treacherous that it would take him maybe one day just to get to the town and then he would spend the night and the next day he would come back.
And once the Internet appeared, he could at least find out, is there anything for me in the town that makes me ‑‑ that I have to go and pick up. And actually, this is a similar to the interesting cartoon that we watched when we were all locked down during COVID about Santa clause and there was this 1 post officer that gets sent very far away and he has to go across the seas and mountains and forests just to find out if there is any message for him to deliver.
And another aspect what he engaged in is to get more letters to run through the post office so that he can get ‑‑ keep his job. He helped increase digital literacy in people of the village ‑‑ of people in the village. So if we increase the e‑commerce literacy of people, if we provide digital content in local languages, that would mean that there will be much more information exchange happening. What we found out when we brought Internet to the villages, the local community would say, thank you, but there is nothing for me in there because I speak my language and all the content in there is foreign. So, that's why we started as a second Biggs effort was to create ‑‑ big effort was to create digital content, online content in Kyrgyz language. Last we found out that in these villages, there were no books for kids in Kyrgyz language. So one of the activities that we just recently did is to collect 1,000 books for kids, and we wanted to deliver them to many of the villages, but we couldn't do it physically. And of course, we turned to the post office to help us deliver these Christmas gifts almost.
(Laughter).
Thank you.
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: Thank you. There are disparate populations in the Caribbean. And I think the ‑‑ I believe UNESCO has an initiative for digitising some of these indigenous artifacts.
There is a market, I mean, globally for this kind of information in particular these businesses that offer tracing of your heritage. Right? I think anassisttry.com and others like it. And I saw there's a move where especially when you look at the historical, say, for example, the Transatlantic slave trade, where there's still a lot of information and ‑‑ where there's diaspora in the United States and in the UK. People want to be able to trace their lineage. That's an opportunity I think where ‑‑ an opportunity for developing countries, those that have a rich history, those that have indigenous populations to monetize that content.
Now, I would say not enough is being done and we run the risk of providing connectivity to people who are not connected now, and then there isn't the content that is relevant to them or there isn't the values that are also relevant to them.
There are few initiatives in Barbados. They don't come to mind right now, but I'm happy to share them at another time where, again, the focus is on tracing ancestry and so on and documenting, say, the Transatlantic slave trade and other ‑‑ the history of colonialism and so on, so people are aware of the culture heritage and those sorts of historical artifacts that are of relevance today. Thanks.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thanks. And as I go to Paul, I want to add something to Paul's response to that question. So, Paul, the ‑‑ we spoke about the services and allowing the post offices to be a one‑stop shop in some way. What, in your experience, have you seen at the UPU with the post becoming that vehicle for including ‑‑ that's another vision of inclusion, now ‑‑ including citizens who have been not reached by the government service footprint in terms of trying to get them to help them not just with delivering the services itself, so delivering a passport and so on, but maybe even helping them actually apply for a service, because, again, as citizens go online, some people just don't know how, don't have a device, as we spoke about. Maybe there's an opportunity there for that to happen as well. So, if you have a response to the first part indigenous, we're going to switch that as well to the assistive aspect of inclusion. Paul?
>> PAUL DONOHOE: Yeah, Tracy, I think you bring up an important new point around people's access to the digital world, because a lot of people still find it difficult to complete government forms online to be able to complete procedures for importing and exporting. And this is where the post office has provided services. So, we know in Lebanon, for example, the Lebanon ‑‑ the government has utilized the post in Lebanon to support completion of online documents with offline verification. So, you initiate the government transaction online through a portal, which is hosted by Lebanon post which is the Lebanese postal service, and once you get to the submission of the document, you need to provide some physical proof of who you are and of the validity of the information providered.
So you then come to the post office. You can schedule an appointment online so you don't have to waste your time queueing for ‑‑ or travelling for a long period of time and then having to queue, so you can schedule an appointment. You can come and visit the post office, verify the online information that you have provided, and then that completes the transaction.
And so, that's also available for people who are not digitally literate. They can basically just initiate an appointment at the post office to say, I want to complete this government process. And then the postman or woman in the post office will actually assist in completing that process. And that's a very important part. That's not just in Lebanon with Libyaon post. In Kenya with the you who Douma project, which is a delivery of government services project throughout the country, then HuDUMA offices are established again. In Kenya, there are 55 government services that you can have access to through the post office in a variety of hybrid or online services, and, again, that supports the local language, the local communities, and the digital literacy issues in there.
When we talk about going online, Tracy, I might actually give a bit of a segue into you introducing some ideas into the conversation, then we talk about how the post can be a facilitator of businesses getting online. And ‑‑ but to do that, we need to also empower the post with this capability. And this is something at the UPU that we are working very strongly on, within the Connect.post project, we are advocating with policymakers for them to be included into the digital plans. We're advocating for the connectivity of these post offices. But as Rodney just mentioned, connectivity is not enough. There needs to be also this capability within the post office.
And so, also when businesses go online, there needs to be this assurance of security. When you're on the digital world and there's a whole new set of skills that you need to make sure that you can survive in this digital world as well.
So, in the UPU, we are developing programmes to support post offices in this capability build. And this is maybe something, Tracy, that you can talk to in terms of the .POST initiative and its context within Connect.post.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you for that segue, Paul. And I will share my screen just as you have allowed me to do so. And I will show the audience what's ‑‑ exactly what you're talking about in terms of the frame that the UPU has dark framework that the UPU has to build out. Let me find a way to do this full screen and get this done. Hang on a sec.
>> PAUL DONOHOE: I guess we don't need to instruct you. It's just a matter of finding the right button.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Right. There we are. So, I'm hoping you're seeing my screen now. No? Because it's sharing. It's loading slowly. It's loading. All right. Well, what you should be seeing is a slide that refers to the framework. Let me just try again. Let me try ‑‑ oh, that's ‑‑ okay. Maybe I'll leave it there just to avoid any challenges. I'm trying to give you a view. Ha you are seeing, the screen. Okay, great. I could use this. Just get a little bigger maybe. No, it's fine? Let's use this. So, to a large extent, this screen attempts to show the overall UPU cyber‑security policy framework which is based around what Paul mentioned as the .POST environment. We have a platform, which I'm currently in charge of, that looks to rule out for the posts a secure, trusted environment where you can deliver services, the .POST but also a series of accompanying policy frameworks, services and wrappers around that. So we start with the security framework. As you can see here, I don't want to get too technical, but rest assured, compliant to this framework allows posts and anyone actually for ta matter, to ‑‑ that matter to deliver services. That's a reasonably secure in terms of getting it at a basic level, without securing a network level. We're doing it at the DNS level here. And looking to secure email as well. So, utilizing standards that are well known to the IT folks in the organisation, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and not only that, we have a framework where we can allow you to track your compliance, something called cybertrack downtown post. Once you're part of the .POST environment, you're able to track your compliance on a dashboard that we are able to offer to you. You'll get a list. You'll be able to ensure that on a rolling basis daily, otherwise whether you're complying with all our policy frameworks and how we approach that.
And as you move forward in terms of what we're going to do, next, we have a living platform where you can build capacity as we talked about earlier.
(Learning), aspects of this inclusion is building capacity around cyber‑security, digital e‑commerce and so on. So we have built a learning platform for that to happen. And we are also about to launch a secure .POST portal. What that is going to do is allow the post to come in and access material from a series of international partners. You can put in one location so that the postal network can get in and access material that is already available in terms of training, infographics, best practises, policies and so on. And that's coming soon. We should have that up and running in Q4 of 2023. And that will be available ‑‑ it will be open to all, but really designed for the postal sector.
Not only that, at the UPU, we've built out a CIRT for the postal sector that is currently being deployed and CIRT will allow us to respond to incidents within the postal sector that can be then shared as a best practise depending on what's happening there with other members of the sector. And that will eventually lead to something called an ISOC which we are currently implementing for the entire global postal sector, regulated sector. So that's coming soon from .POST. And not only that, just to share with you what's really coming and you can visit our booth in the IGF to learn more. We are going to be offering secure services on our new platform .POST registration platform. On this platform, you'll be able to get secure DNS services, secure website, secure hosting. This is important because, as we mentioned earlier, postal is looking to move forward with e‑commerce, marketplaces and so on. But the skill sets and the capacities that they have within the post are very limited. I've been to a few posts, and I've seen that sometimes there's one IT person working there covering everything from the PCs on the desks of the workers to the network to trying to get just stuff done on a day‑to‑day basis, so having something as esoteric as an e‑commerce platform and building it out and doing all the work that's required is very challenging. So we plan to offer at the very least the infrastructure to allow it to happen at a reasonable price, you'dlizing a secure platform so that they can obtain these services and deploy them very rapidly, so very quick to deploy. To do that, we're going to offer them, as you said, secure DNS, certificates, secure email, secure web hosting, and eventually once they get all of that right, secure e‑commerce, platforms and connections to tools like Stripe and the personal payment services that you may have in your country, whether it be Wallets or otherwise. Thank you for that segment and sore eye I couldn't do full screen but certainly you can tackle this later to get a demonstration to see what we offer or you can visit us in the booth at the IGF village today. Thanks, Paul.
>> PAUL DONOHOE: Well done, Tracy. These important new services are really going to help empower the postal network to deliver the types of services that we've been discussing, but just to reinforce that actually these services are actually being used already in a number of countries, so in Zimbabwe, I think Tracy, Zimbabwe mall .POST is a national part place that Zimbabwe post is hosting for the SMEs in Zimbabwe. There are, I believe, over 300SMEs that have registered on Zimbabwe mall, and they are selling their goods online using the platform that Zimbabwe post or Zim post as they call are providing. And this is an example of how posts are supporting the SMEs inclusion in the digital economy with e‑commerce support services. They are also providing payment support services. This is one of the critical issues in e‑commerce, the availability of payment support in many countries for e‑commerce is a challenge. Credit cards are not readily available, so from a financial inclusion perspective, the post is an important partner in helping businesses to get online and get access to sustainable services.
So, this is a sustainability issue. You'dlizeing this public infrastructure to sustain digital inclusion.
We also have another example in Rwanda with Rwanda mall. It's an international marketplace. Again, there are over 500 SMEs that are registered in Rwanda mall as a national marketplace to be able to sell online. But the government found that the majority of those SMEs are located in the capital city, that are registered, and so, there is a push now through the postal network to reach out to the rural areas where many SMEs do exist and to encourage those SMEs to come online with the support of the post office network. And this national marketplace is a very important concept for the policy‑makers because it encourages exports. It encourages economic development in those communities. And the post is the support service with excellent technical solutions that Tracy's talking about gives the security and trust for these marketplaces to exist in the national environment and to encourage SMEs to be able to participate online.
And also provide them with the necessary training and support. And I know with Rodney, we're working closely between the UPU and the CTU on bringing this capability to the Small Island Developing States in the Caribbean. We've recently signed a cooperation agreement, so we're very proud to be working with the CTU. And bringing this capability to the Caribbean postal services and also collaborating with the integration of this within government policy across the Caribbean, and I think this is going to be very important for the development of the economies in the Caribbean, Rodney.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Certainly. I think, Rodney, what we could segue into is using the MAU that we signed with the CTU as a jumping‑off point and having seen the first ‑‑ you've actually done one in Barbados already. Having seen what's happened there what do you think are the real opportunities that exist now for post to really offer this inclusion vehicle, additional services, collective action, working together as a region, revenue opportunities, new revenue opportunities in this area as well as potentially from where you sit, trying to truly bring The Postal Network into national digital policy and ensure that they can almost provide the digital inclusion solution, if not all of it, part of it. What are your thoughts on that?
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: Yes, there are definitely opportunities for revenue. The examples I mentioned before brought significant revenues to the Barbados postal service so each delivery was a cost, not a lot cost, $10 which is 5 US dollars for delivery, but chair that to, like I said, the cost of getting public transportation or even driving your car the time off from work and that kind of thing. And so, the majority of persons opted to choose that delivery service.
There's still some awareness that has to happen at the level of policy‑makers who aren't really yet of that mindset who don't fully understand the nexus between digital and postal. So, there's still the notion that everything can be done online, but the reality is that online has to connect at some point with the offline, and therefore, that collaboration is critical. So there's need for awareness. The collaboration we have, I mean, Paul is participating in our upcoming ICT week and has an opportunity to present at the regional level so that we are on the same page.
But the regional notwithstanding, we will work, as it were, door to door. We will work with the Coalition. We've had expression of interest from the likes of belli even though ‑‑ it's not an island but it is classified as one of our states and it's listed as one for some reason. But bellies is very different. Bellies is the same population as Barbados but it's spread through a much, much bigger land mass and, therefore, this is something that they're very, very keen on. Imagine ‑‑ I talk about taking time off from Barbados, but the truth is, you can get from one end of Barbados to the next in about half‑hour, 45 minutes, depends how fast you're driving. But with Beliz, you can drive four hours from one town to the next. So therefore, it becomes more important when you have that sort of geographic spread of towns and villages to be able to connect with the post.
So there's some awareness that has to be done. I've seen where there are revenue opportunities for the post. I've seen where the postal workers themselves get excited about being included in this new digital transformation. And they ‑‑ the citizens who interact with them because, again, they're friendly faces. They're pleased to see the people that they know helping and in terms of delivering those public service.
So I don't remember the figure, but there was significant revenue that was earned by the post, I think. But I would say that we talked about fulfilment centres and so on and so on. The information ‑‑ infrastructure point of view, there's a need to ensure that there are ‑‑ they've positioned themselves, in other words, that renovations they need to do, that the facility is there when they ‑‑ if they have to go to the post, there's a space for it. Jamaica has done this successfully. Jamaica, one of the largest post offices in the heart of Kingston has been transformed. It's been fully modernised, and it's actually the place where you go to apply if ‑‑ if you don't apply online, you can go there and apply for your digital identity and have it delivered there to you. I know Jamaica has some challenges with it, but the fact is they're working with the post office on that particular initiative, and they have completely renovated the postal ‑‑ post office and have made it sort of e‑commerce ready as a fulfil amendment centre. Thanks.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: And Talant ‑‑ thanks, Rodney ‑‑ the nexus now between the business side of the post and let's get perhaps what your thoughts on whether or not inclusion at a community level from the business side can also extend into the community side. When I say that, when you are talking about content generation, we brought that up earlier and having that as a potential revenue opportunity, you know, so there's ‑‑ (?) content from the central Asia region online and having your stakeholders learn, consume and perhaps even earn revenue, write books on ‑‑ sell books online, sell research articles, do research, do you see that as being something that can happen with the post? And if so, how can community networks assist in that regard? I'm getting community networks as a sort of a catalyst to make that something like that happen.
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Thanks so much, Tracy, for that question. I'm learning a lot from today's session, and certainly when I'm back home, I'll share with my colleagues in the postal service. And at the same time, I know that Kyrgyz postal service has been looking into different opportunities that digitalisation is bringing, including in terms of e‑commerce. It also reminded me that in Kyrgyzstan, postal service is still looking into providing banking services, and I think if I'm not mistaken, Japan is one of the successful cases where postal service provides ‑‑ or one of the biggest financial services institutions, and there is one maybe story that for post collection stories about Kyrgyzstan how postal service was, you know, instrumental in involving people providing government services. So, Kyrgyzstan is considered the ‑‑ one of the more democratic countries in the region of central Asia, and our previous President decided that we should have elections based on ediametrical data and using electronic polling machines but of course not everybody had data in the system and not everybody had digital IDs and the postal offices became the hubs to help people get all that data.
And it had to be done within a ‑‑ I think couple of months, everybody if you wanted to participate in the elections, you needed to register through the system. And grandmas, grandparents, young people, everybody would go to the post office and get services in local languages or, like, step‑by‑step kind of guidance doing this end. As a result, in Kyrgyzstan, we had elections which were unprecedented. I mean, for the past 20 years, every elections we would have protests the following day because there were so many opposition parties contesting. When we did this new approach, the following day, it was so quiet. For Kyrgyzstans unusual to have quiet day after the election, because everybody trusted the system. And maybe not everybody knew about cyber‑security threats, so this is coming back to your presentation. And those who kind of are more into digitalisation, they were concerned, now I've submitted my biometric data to the government through the postal service, but is it safe? We don't know. I hope it's safe. But for sure, we need to follow up on your presentation to ensure and double ensure that all the data is actually secure and safe.
>> PAUL DONOHOE: Maybe it if I can follow up on that, Talant, those issues are faced in many countries and even in the advanced countries where we think that everything is well established, even the role of the posting supporting advanced countries in this area is still evident. I'm thinking of Switzerland. So, this year, Switzerland will hold electronic voting, and Swiss post is actually the ‑‑ one of the providing agencies to support the electronic voting system in Switzerland for elections. So, in Switzerland, they've taken that one step further as actually the post is supporting the evoting system itself within the country.
But Talant, I think I want to take another angle with you as well in terms of the ISOC's activities. And I know that you're active in community networks and the deployment of community networks. And I wonder if you see out of this discussion today if you see a role that the post could play in the deployment of community networks even maybe to the extent of collocation of infrastructure in postal facilities, the logistics to get equipment distributed into community centres. I wonder if you've got some ideas or some feedback on that sort of concept.
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Thanks so much, Paul. For sure, there are already several thoughts that I have that could be done together with the post office starting with the physical infrastructure, network of postal services across the country, and Rodney mentioned about fulfilment centres. I think the postal offices in Kyrgyzstan are already trying to become kind of if not leaders but active participants of this system.
Providing digital skills training. For example, when we go to remote locations, oftentimes, there are no official or government buildings or kind of suitable offices where you can have a training. And if you have a place, oftentimes, you don't have workers who are ‑‑ who could provide these kind of things bus villagers are usually ‑‑ they're attending their animals or are in the fields, and usually postal workers and municipal workers are the kind of front lines of people who ‑‑ local communities actually expect when national ‑‑ there is a new service, they would come and ask the postal service or municipal service officers, like, teach us. What's going on in the centre? And I think the postal offices could be, like, in the avant‑garde in terms of providing these trainings. And when we work on these kinds of activities, we are ‑‑ we feel shorthanded because we don't have the network of facilities and network of people like the postal service does. So I think there could be a lot of collaboration in that.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thanks, Talant. I think we ‑‑ we have some interventions from the floor. State your name and ‑‑
>> Sure. Bevel wooding. In this case, I'd be representing the Caribbean network group, a volunteer‑based group of computer network engineers who have been looking at ways of support digital solutions throughout the contributian ‑‑ Caribbean. Listening to the presentation Tracy gave, I'm very impressed with the initiatives coming out. I just wondered if there was a way for us to support that within the context of the Caribbean. We have been working with ‑‑ very closely with the Caribbean telecommunications union. We have everything from digital training and literacy type programmes that I think will do ta ‑‑ would do very well if there were aligned initiatives like this which will help with postal improvement, which is tied to the digital economy. So is there opportunity for collaboration, support, working alongside where those volunteers that we have would be very keen to help support international and regional level would be able to join something like this and help accelerate deployment?
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you, bevel. So I'll address that question after ‑‑ you have a question, ma'am? Take this question as well.
>> Thank you very much for the presentations, which are very exciting and enlightening. Christine. I work with (?) Uganda, and so, I was actually pleasantly surprised of the opportunities in comparison to what is happening on ground in terms of the readiness of our national postal (?) actually these opportunities.
So, my question is from your experience, what are the key critical factors, especially from a policy perspective, to position the postal network to actually take on those opportunities? because the current status is more some post offices closing, issues of sustainability, the balance between the obligations for universal service vis‑à‑vis also competition from other career companies that have come and gone into the logistic market. So, we have, for example, how you'd have Uber here, we need to deliveries and things like that, so I'm interested in knowing the experience especially from a policy perspective, what can be done to reposition what is seemingly like dying, to the point of the gentleman from Caribbean, like something that would stuck in (?) email and has been overtaken and yet there's so much opportunity from what I'm hearing. Thank you.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you so much for your question as well. So, I think we'll start with answering the first question, so Rodney, and Paul, the it's above my paygrade so you can take the other one.
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Yes, we ‑‑ just to draw the example the support we provided to the Caribbean Postal Union where the website was down, it's a very (?) constrained organisation. And we noticing that the website was down, reached out to them and helped them register .POST domain using Richard from my office. That basic level of support. And I suspect as they struggle, a lot of the other territories will struggle. You mentioned one IT guy who's doing everything. So even by way of, first of all, bringing together the technical community to work with Tracy to understand what the .POST initiative is all about, what are the technical requirements and then supporting not ‑‑ there are a lot of young people as well and maybe we can leverage them. We wouldn't be able to afford, say, someone of (?)'s calibre. He's an international resource. But we can use some of the young people to help just sort of basic support, help the post offices get off the ground. So, if you go to CPU .POST, you'll see how we were able to support the postal unit. I see the need for that kind of support going forward. But, of course, I think it would be useful for the next (?) to have a presentation for you and work with the ‑‑ if it hasn't been done yet to get a better understanding of what is required.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you very much, Mr. Taylor. I think that's a very good ‑‑ sold. Let's make that happen.
(Laughter).
To answer it's question from the Uganda regulator, Paul, maybe you can take that. As I said, I think it's above my pay grade.
>> PAUL DONOHOE: Yeah, happy to ‑‑ excuse me. Happy to to, Tracy. Also, I'd lake to respond to bevel's question as well because I think the post is there to support the national skills that are available in a variety of different sectors and so, if there can also be this partnership with the post office, it can help support local expertise. It's available in the young, also with universities, with local associations. These resources are there to work with the post office. So, the post office would love to reach out into these communities, gain access to these skills and use those to share with, first of all, postal employees. As I mentioned at the beginning of this, one of the things that has to happen is actually education of postal employees around the digital capability, what is possible and how it is possible, which is the second most important thing. So working with these local associations, I think, is an excellent idea and is something that we have seen being done in other parts of the world. So, I would very much support that within the Caribbean and we can continue that discussion, Rodney, under our collaboration.
Let me come to the second question from Christine. Thank you very much for what is a very interesting question. And the key challenges that we see in this are to do with awareness and to do with Rodney mentioned this before about the change in mindset about what this public infrastructure is possibly able to deliver in terms of the government's goals. And that's where we are working very closely together. The UPU has this programme, Connect.post, which is discussing the new use of the postal network as a means for governments to achieve Sustainable Development Goals, economic development, and digital development. And so, our role is to advocate for this change to happen.
And as Rodney mentioned, policy‑makers in some ways are not aware. They're thinking of, as you mentioned, Christine, the old role of the post in delivering letters. And letters are not a significant part of the economy, particularly in your region, for example. E‑commerce is where the activity is. And the competition that you mentioned is happening. And so, as a regulator, you are seeing the development of the e‑commerce logistics space in effectively in competition with the post office, but the post office is really about universal service for letters.
Now, there needs to be a change in mindset and what is universal ‑‑ about what is universal service? What does the community need in this new age of e‑commerce? The community needs quality,ry liable, logistics delivery services coming back to the Santa Claus analogy at the beginning of this from Talant. People expect now quality delivery.
And many of these competitors that you referred to your market are mainly focussed on the urban areas, because that's where the issue is. So, universal access to e‑commerce is a point across the hall of Uganda. So, the rural communities in Uganda should have the same right to e‑commerce access as the people who are living in the urban areas.
And so, this is a new dialogue that we are encouraging. Now, it's a two‑way dialogue. The governments are not really aware of this new value that the public network, the public postal network can bring. But also, it's a responsibility of the post to advocate for this new role with the policy‑makers as well. So it's a two‑way discussion.
We've seen very good examples. I've mentioned Zimbabwe. It's been a discussion between the government and the postal operator with the regulator involved as well, about how the public postal and (?) can deliver on government's goals and be an implementation arm for government policy, particularly e‑commerce strategy, digital transformation strategy. We've seen in Ghana where Ghana has been recognized in the new digital strategy for Ghana. The post office in Ghana has been recognised as an implementation partner to bring the inclusion elements that we've discussed on this panel today.
It requires a new thought process. And we see with now the next generation coming into the policy‑making environment, the next generation coming into the leadership of the post, then they are educated in the possibilities of the digital economy, and they are more excited than we are about the opportunities for true inclusion across the whole country. And this is the really important issue that the public postal network provides.
It is an inclusion vehicle, a social inclusion, a digital inclusion, a financial inclusion. And Talant mentioned the example of Japan post, the Japan postal savings bank was one of the largest banks in the world, in fact. And that's a traditional role for postal savings. That's a traditional role as children, you were given access to a postal savings account, and it was your pocket money that you were saving in a postal savings bank account. And that's a traditional role in many, many countries.
But there have been postal recently entering the banking services, and it's a trend that we see in a number of posts. India post has 155,000 post offices across every community in India. And they are banking the unbanked. They are providing postal savings banks. They are providing financial services to all in India in all 155,000 post offices. The Indian Government has seen the benefit of connecting those post offices so they have connected all of the Indian post offices are connected with available connectivity to support banking services, postal services, e‑commerce services.
So, yeah, the critical success factors you asked from a policy perspective are, first of all, to be aware of the new role that this public infrastructure can play in achieving government goals. We advocate for it to be integrated, the postal network to be integrated into digital strategies e‑commerce strategies, so we're working with UNCTAD for example as part of the for all initiative where we're doing assessments across the world with the government with the Ministry on e‑commerce development and we're integrating the post in e‑commerce strategies and e‑commerce policies and Action Plans for the development of e‑commerce. We're working with the CTU in the Caribbean along the same lines as well of integrating the post in digital capability development with policy‑makers and regulators.
And the sustainability of this public infrastructure is a critical issue for the policy‑makers, as you mentioned. The letters revenue is dying. So diversification of services to help the sustainability of this public infrastructure is a vital thing.
And the diversification of services is not about exclusivity. It's about partnering with banks. It's about Parker with e‑commerce companies. It's about a public private partnership between this public infrastructure and the private sector services capability and to use the postal network as a vehicle to reach all of the population.
The private sector has the solutions, but they don't have access to the market. The post office has access to the market, but doesn't have solutions. So, the partnership between the public sector and the private sector is an important policy issue that post offices regulators and policy‑makers should be considering in terms of sustainability and economic development and diversification.
It was a very long answer. I'm sorry. Hopefully, it addresses the points that you asked, Christine.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Yeah, thanks. I think it's a very comprehensive answer, and it's actually your last word, because we have just less than two minutes left. So I'm going to ask my colleagues on the panel to wrap up in minutes. Here's the wrap‑up. It helps our reporting. Give me one key takeaway and one call to action that you would like to make in regards to The Postal Network being of equal inclusion giving you experiences.
>> RODNEY TAYLOR: I would say the call to action, the level of policymake esis to push for greater awareness across ‑‑ so we're working with one or two and we should continue to pursue we have proof of concept but we should also embark on a very heavily on an after I awareness campaign so we have more collective action within the Caribbean.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you very much. Talant, one takeaway, one call to action.
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Welt I think clearly there are so many opportunities that postal services, especially in Kyrgyzstan could take advantage of. And of course, it will depend a lot on learning from the global experience and being agile and nimble on the national level.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: All right. Since you're so short and brief, I could ask Paul maybe to give us one takeaway and one call to action.
>> PAUL DONOHOE: Yeah, thanks, countriesy. So, I think the key takeaway that I bring is that there is an interest in exploring the use of this public infrastructure for digital inclusion. That's clear from our discussions today.
There is a call to action to the governments to reflect on their commitments that they made 20 years ago at WSIS that ensuring that post offices, libraries and schools, as you mentioned before, were key implementation agents for and digital inclusion. It's still as red light vent today as it was 20 years ago and the call to action is for governments and policy‑makers to meet their commitments that were made 20 years ago.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you very much. And I would like to give my own final call to action. Do it but do it safely and do it securely. Come to us for advice on that, and we can help you with that. With that, I'd like to end this discussion. Thank you so much for your participation, for your engagement, for the great knowledge shared. This will be available online on the IGF IGF YouTube channel. Thank you once again. Enjoy the rest of the day. Enjoy the rest of the IGF. Enjoy Kyoto.
(Speaking Japanese)
>> TALANT SULTANOV: Everybody deserve a little chocolate for free.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you, all.