on peut laisser les les participants entrés dans la salle, ils sont déjà là, il y a du participant, oui, can you start the recording? I start the recording from the Montgomery Blair room. All right, great. All right, so welcome everyone, good morning, good afternoon and good evening, so for wherever you are in the world. My name is Tracy Hapshaw, I am the dot post business manager working in the Universal Postal Union. Along with me today is my colleague, Méson Sebrach, who is also from the dot post business management unit, and today we are in the middle of our dot post member showcase of our webinar series for this this 2023 period and today we'll be presenting or hosting facilitating one of our newer members, Ethiopost, from Ethiopia, and they have been using dot post for I think just about half a year maybe. We met with them actually last year in Ethiopia and they gave us a nice run of their plans and I'm actually happy to see that they are implementing all of those plans, that's really, really great to see a post who has been heavily involved in with dot post and actually using it and implementing their plans and doing quite well. So as you would have probably done from our invitation, this is a two part webinar. Today we are going to be focusing on the business side of the of the discussion and tomorrow we'll be doing a technical deep dive just to make sure you set your expectations exactly as they should be. So presenting today is Mr Ibrahim Kedil. He is the chief information officer at Ethiopost. What a wonderful individual as I met with him. He was really, really extremely helpful and willing to share the plans and it's fantastic to see a post actually implementing what they say they're doing. So it's really, really good to see this and doing such great work. So we're happy to have Ibrahim with us today to share some of the ideas and what they're thinking about doing as Ethiopost, which is, if not the largest, one of the largest posts in Africa on the continent and certainly competed some of those huge players around the world as well. Some of the huge posts that you would you well aware of around the world from the North American and European and Asian areas. So it's really great to see a post from Africa doing such a good work in this space, especially in the digital space. So I'm hopeful as we ensure that we get all of our attendees to join that you will enjoy today's presentation. And yes, it will be recorded and shared with those who registered. So for those asking that question, yes, it will be recorded and shared. So without further ado, let me begin by welcoming Ibrahim to the floor and Ibrahim, over to you. Or just before you begin, just to let you know how the questions will begin about rule. For those who are familiar with our process, we don't normally take questions verbally. So we ask that you put questions in the Q&A pod, which is at the bottom and most of your Zoom screens. It's called Q&A. And if you happen to use the chat, please ensure the questions are to everyone and that you make it in a form of a question. But feel free to put comments and so on in the chat as you see fit. Feel free to introduce yourselves, say who you are, where you're from, let people know who's here. And yes, let's have a good session today. So again, back to you Ibrahim. Let's go. Thank you. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you. First of all, I'd like to express my appreciation for the dot post groups including UPO staffs to present our experience for the rest of the world on the postal industry and every activity of ETO post. My name is Ibrahim Kader. I'm chief information officer since from two, I mean, one years ago here in ETO post. So today I'm just explaining the operational patent experience of ETO post. So the award discussions or today discussions mainly focus on today and the operational high level operational activity of ETO post. And tomorrow I'll express and present the dot post's technical parts of our experience. So let's go to my today presentations. My presentation title on the tipton and diversify using dot post. So mostly just the three or the past three strategies mainly focus on deep and diversified postal service into the country wide and the continental and global wide. So my agenda only mainly focused on introductions, milestones, product profiles, reforms and achievements and corporate strategy. Also digital investment, what we do in the last three years and future what's the future plan of our information technology and others plan. So first of all, I would like to just introduce my country. You know, my country is founded the Horn of Africa. I think most of you know where is Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the the origin of human beings, you know, that you'll refer to what's Ethiopia. And it's the second population, the populous countries of the global, I mean, over the continent, Africa, sorry. So the basis of Africa Union Commissions and many international organisations found here in Ethiopia. So as a whole, Ethiopia Post also have, I think, the 700 branches over the country, 700 in their bath. I think the franchising also increase time to time about 600, 500. Also, we Ethiopia Post have more than 2,200 employees and 300 fleets inside in the Ethiopia for operational services. Let me just explain where have we have been and today in the future. As just shown in the slide, the origins of our organization starting from 1894, which is Ethiopia Postal Service established years and then the next November 1, Ethiopia Post became the number of UPU, which is 19808. The 1986 started bath logistics and service. Many services have been started in the Ethiopia Post, other than the postal services. We just diversified our service and started financially retail service on the 1987. On the 1988, the starting express mail, AMS, just we have many routes on the AMS over the wallet and we have good level and using our level of standard equality of service time to time. And now 2017 starting passport and visa delivery service, which is our service become just diversified and increased time to time. In 2021, we have launched e-commerce and just we have started the Ethiopia Post membership. So, we increased our services time to time, day to day. So, we should have to increase our reachability. Points of the postal services are just we have postal mail, express mail, logistic mail, financial service, postal shop, government services. These are our products profile, which is reaches to reach our customer in the local, global and international level. On the preview of our performance, we have just 5.4 total package in the past two years to here to reach our customer. 1.5 millions expense package. Domestic destination also increased time to time and we got above 515 and plus. International destination also 170 countries. On the internet, we have a destination place. On the past two years, we have 500,000 passport also distributed for the citizens and the international community. 1.5 millions also health sample also delivered for the customer. We have also just implemented acquires 350 millions financial transactions in the past three years. Also, as I explained, postal mail also delivers the letter post, the small packets parcel on the mail rental on the postal products. As you know, the postal organization should find the financial services product or should provide financial services. Today's diversified their products and we implemented bulk payments to the international organization as well as the local organization. We have the financial services. As I told you that the M.A. service also our products which implemented and what we brand name. Express mail also, as I told you, the premium and the fastest delivery of the documentation and parcel in the last miles and delivers. The other parts of what we have started in the 2021, e-service, which is even postal shops and we have retail of the certain parties stocks. So we have, if you have just a review or visit our website, just we have a vile different e-shops and we have only the physical retail service of the counter areas and distributions and sales. On the other service of our product is basically on the logistics. The logistics service also provides passenger transports for the inside, the local passengers and moving services, health care, logistics and others logistics service also just acquired in this year and we expand our service for our customer. On the flat daily, we have aval, the flat daily museum inside the headquarters and just providing the digital flat daily service on our website. So we just provide what we are, what we have been and what will feature to the countries, the globe and the other and the continental level. The other product of our organization is basically on the governmental service. Governmental services, the basic product of our services, such like roadfront services, the national ID service and other related governmental organization service have been just acquired. The passport service also a governmental service, thus just categorizing the governmental service products. So what's the economical, sorry, what the economical achievement for the past three years in our postal organization. In these cases, we offer a competitive services. Just in the past years, we have innovative strategy. We design a strategy for reform our organizations to be competitive and provide quality of service for the citizens, the international community. So we offer competitive service, the first achievement and the second achievement, we secure firm financial standing. So our financial standing will increase time to time because as postal organization should be capable with the financial ability. So we should have to design the strategy to increase our security of financial standing. So we incur our finance and secured our finance, also our revenue just increase time to time. We also acquire and achieve optimized resources. So we have a number of resources in the organization, including just the building resources and the moving resources. Many resources should be just optimized to use and to input for our product and services. So built in this institutional capacity, the other achievement, which is institutional capacity should be just develop, should be developed and just we have implemented the different strategy to develop our institutional capacity. So the capacity should be capable of the globalization or globalization capability of the postal industry. So we have built institutional capacity. So in this achievement, we have improved mail security. Most of our quality of service measured by our mail security. So our mail security just accept and deliver in the secure manner and remarkable improvement of mail speed. International out going for an instance, international out going is just 7 to decrease to one days. Before that, it's a step 7 days and decrease to one days because of our the quality of service and implemented strategy. The MMS also on the time delivery of 98% our MMS will deliver for the expected customer or part. So when you're showing that the the increase international MMS and revenue and when you're showing the presentation slide above 45% the MMS volume increase year 2 years. Our revenue also increase 41% year 2 years because because of our strategy and other capacity building including capacity building from UQ just as a member. So in the overall 84% in 2020, our rank is 84, 84th rank. So it's increased to 20, 21, 78th rank and where we just come to a good standing on the six days 2021. So reliability and catch up will start on the 2022 and we have got a bonus on the 75% bonus from the MMS. So the MMS service of our quality charge just as under bent our rank is on the come to from the parties to come to the good performance on the as you see on the 2020 to 2022. Because 2021 70s and we come and we apply on the different strategy. Our rank should be just come to good and good performance 2022. Fair enough. So what's our strategy? What's our just the deepen and the diversified products? So in this case, what mean to deepen? What mean diversified? So when we are saying that deep to expanding our network and reaching us and reachable our product and service to our customers international levels. So in this case, we will first things what we done at the build our capability and deploy new systems because as a postal as to be competitive postal organization, we should have to design and build a new reform it and qualified postal organization. So in this case, we should have to just design our strategy redesign our strategy for the strategy strategy. We build capacity for our organization simple and stakeholders. So we should have to just acquire every service activities to be increase our revenue. In this case, we have done different activities on the different strategy. So the diversified should be just one postal organization service should be diversified without diversification. Our existence should not be just acquired. In this case, our organization just the government service provider. So in the government service provider, we acquire different government services. So we should have to reach for the customer, the citizens in different kinds of service. The financial service also, we have acquired and implemented. As I told you previously, the road fund, the digital ID and different kinds of the financial service. I mean, government service also implemented financial source of the international payment. And we have also plan to implement in this year, the digital finance service for the customer. So we will join the digital finance service industry. The logistic as I told you that we have implemented different kinds of services in the digital, I mean logistic transport, moving transport, just what we call it the laboratory goods and service and e-commerce source for our diversified products. As you will see, our legend airplane industry, Ethiopian airplanes also, our partner to moving every the e-commerce activity. And we have helped and agree with more understanding to applying every activity on the e-commerce. So in this case, what was the digital investment because of the IT investment to capability and to excel our operation? What was the digital investment have been done in our organization? Right. On the digital investment, digital strategy foundation is very, very critical in the first tasks should be done before three years. So the digital strategy documents should be just held on the international consultant. So they just assess what we have and what they suggest and documented what need to be done on the digital investment. So we should have to get very agreed documented on the digital strategy to be done on the latest than the previous three years and the next 10 years. So on the digital documents, what we have, what should be acquired, what should be done and why, which tasks should be prioritized for the next 10 years. So based on these documents, we have plan to implement and to support the operational service and to acquire or to gain our revenue and our richest. The other things what we've done on the digital investment development of new website. As you know, we have discussion in detail tomorrow and I will show you some future on our website. We should have to rebrand our organizations with digital opportunity and digital choice. So what we plan is that we should have to develop state of art new website that support e-commerce that will support the online services that support the customer richness and support the customer relationships. So in this case, we developed state of art website and we just acquired the dot post command from UQ. So what we've done in the second part of the past three years. The other thing is that e-commerce and the e-service, as I told you on the second point, the e-commerce and the e-service is very critical for our organization because as a postal organization, the e-commerce and we are just good opportunity to implement the e-commerce because we have many branches, we have many networks in the international, we have many assets on the fleet management, everything. We are capable to apply the e-commerce and we should have to plan for the e-commerce. So what we've done on the website, we have just designed e-commerce platform. We implemented another way that just on the going projects are communicating with the small scale industry enterprises, goods and services as a host to provide to distribute the e-commerce provider. What about the e-service, we have implemented the e-service activities in the international and local customer on our portal. So you can just register your request on our website, you can just renewal your postbox renewal, annual renewal and other activity on the e-services. I will just review on the next day about the e-commerce and e-service achievement on our digital achievement. On the other part is utilising all applications developed by you too. UK is just one of our partners and what they built the postal organization as capable and well-being manner. So in this case we have developed just, I mean collaborate with the UPU to use the application that was developed by UPU. The other thing is a system integration with the partner including airlines systems, e-commerce companies and others, the local companies too just in interaction with our data for the richest and customer reachability. The other thing what we've done is deploying counter-automations and the R&P also our achievements because without counter-automation we can't just serve our customer. On the other side, R&P softwares also our back office softwares to integrate HR, finance and material management system. So our R&P also while our achievement we have implemented the SAP R&P software for our organizations to manage head office to the 700 branches of our country. The other thing is interconnecting, I mean customer management system also have implemented, in this case we have implemented the state of art, the whole center and interconnecting each other with social medias and we have implemented on our website chatbot so this is our customer management system achievement. The other thing is interconnecting here part of this branch in different connecting infrastructures including just implementing the basic data center in our head office and we connected our branch with VPN so we implemented the network infrastructure in our organization and we have started to upgrade state of art data center. Okay, so the digital strategy just I'm told you that design and implemented a digital strategy. In this case, as I told you, we have designed a document and utilized the document as a basic guide area guide us for our IT strategy. I think that strategy also designed including the UPU IT strategy or technology strategy component. So we have implemented time to time because the strategy implementations have been arranged with the prioritized in the manner so we implemented by that activity. So reorganized the IT system because of the IT system should be capable and reorganized so our higher level managers decide to reorganize IT teams. So our IT teams have been reorganized with chief level and we have three team leads by projects management, the application management and network management have been just organized in the structure and we have around 30 staffs in different professional skills and three team leads. So we implemented this structure for the attainment of our missions and vision. The other thing is the design and implement IT resources and usage policy. Of course, the IT should be governed and should be managed by the policies and usage documents. So we designed and implement the IT policy. So we exercised it to reach our service providing internally and externally. The other thing is that just developing at the website as I told you that on the website projects as I told you that the basic thing should be that that promote our organizations in branding and different opportunity and to utilizing as e-commerce service. So the website projects have been a major achievement in our organization. You can just visit www.etio.post and you do have an absolutely good and state of art website. So beside of that, we just plan to acquire dot post domain, high level domain name. So as you know, I mean before the after dots, it's a post because our organization is postal organization. We should have to use a post dot post domain. We should have to acquire dot post domain because the this domain is a very important for our organization, our industry to be unique. And we will acquire many potency from the dot post provider in the dot post groups and the UPUs. So it should be one of the plan to use dot post. So so many people said why not use the dot com? Why not use dot info? Why not? What's our standing? What will our existence? Because our industry is only not only the commercial. We should have to serve community as a postal organization. We should have to support different kinds of things. We should have to just deploy different diversified services. So these kinds of dot post domain should have gain. So it will be important for our organizations for the next three or above strategies. So we should have to plan and implement the dot post domain. So the previous domains also are just redirecting for this domain, the security and the hosting also. We have done just a securities mechanism with the UPU and we implement and we acquire hosting company and the international company. So in the near future I think dot post will acquire and implement the hosting service from UPU and we will join them. After that we implemented, I mean we just agreed to external hosting provider in the international level. Just in the side of that the dot post we implemented and the company brand new domain address and corporate union because the corporate image should be just promote our organization as well as it's I don't want to explain everything but the corporate image usage and digital publication. So when you just visit on our website or our diversification as I told you the e-commerce service accessibility have been deployed. So we have just acquired so many customers from online, international, basically international. So the international committee have just access to buy goods from our and we will we acquire some revenue from the e-commerce service and accessibility. Online post box service also starting previously but also online service starting with the digital payment. So no one come to our post office physically they can renewal their postal annual service and they can acquire additional new postal requirement or new postal agreement. Online tracking trace also deployed and anyone can just track and trace on our website and online pickup application also deployed. We have deployed on our website online application and anyone can serve on our website. Online job application and accessibility and opportunity also deployed on our website. Online procurements and the visibility and the other different kind of resource also deployed on the website. As I told you that customer complex system also deployed online 700 branch locators. Anyone can find our branch locations with his phone or his laptop without any accessibility because we deployed or we designed and as a module to find out where is the nearest branch of his accessibility. The other thing is that most of the time the customers worry about the how much they they charge. So any customer can just calculate his service chart online. So it's also deployed on our website. Online staffs intranet also deployed. Our staff anywhere, anywhere, place can just enter into the staff portal and access some information from our website. Online philatelier accessibility of course. As I told you that physically the philatelier museum has just implemented in our head office but the far customer can just review our philatelier accessibility on the website. So based on that what was the application which is developed by the UPU. The first things that I told you that the dot post you know the dot post is that that was acquired by the UPU which is a member of other member. We acquired the dot post. I think the process and the technical parts of the dot post will cover on that tomorrow. But as a one member of UPU we got the dot post domain which is implemented dot post domain for the security service portal which is one of our application. As I told you know that CDS customer data service also our basic applications in our operational service. The DPS domestic postal service also have starting to test the implementation, the domestic service, I mean postal services. So it's also acquired by the UPU. The major application is the international postal system which is a very very important software for us to just operationalize our service and to excel our service quality system. So we implemented for the main service operational and CDS, DPS, IPS exhaustively. So the integration parts and the collaboration of our systems to the other partners system integration with the domestic and international commerce companies including the legend airlines. Not in the content but also the global legend airlines, Ethiopian airlines. So we integrate our system, the IP system and domestic with the airline system. So we just smarter our e-commerce and exchanger of mails each other. System integration with post-global and airlines as I told you. System integration with the UPU applications IPS as a person. And we also integrate the international e-commerce companies. Just the local companies also integration have been done and we will also plan to implement the integration others to the other company. As I told you that the counter information also one of our products. So the DPS is our one of strategy to implement over the 700 and above branches because this is a very important application for Ethiopia. Beside of that, we have also implemented the post global application which is used for counter automation. There's some important software for us. The IRR pass, I told you that the financial material HR also managed by the SAP application. So we implemented for the SAP application in the internal process. We have also planned to implement some features for the SAP application in the near future. So regarding the customer, we installed the state of heart core center. So most of customers now just getting a relief on the just requesting some informations and providing us their compliance. And every activity should be just implemented on the core center. Our core center has a state of heart core center. So we have planned to just renovate our smarter and very just technology-based center in the near future. So we acquired, as I told you that Ethiopia, I mean Ethiopia also one of future for the customer services. So if we implement online customer inquire chat, put it on the website. So we can reach our customer with our website. So implemented voiceover phone also implemented in the here in the head office and the airlines branch. So we can communicate when we can reach with voiceover phone lines and SMS service also on the social media channels to be addressed. Customer inquires implemented email and any support for reaching the customer with digital options. So the interconnection, the task is related on 400 branches connected to the Air Parter BC with the VPN. And including the, I think the franchising implemented shared resource domestic coastal applications and the Arabian branch level. So we should have to reach out our rollout, our centralised system to the branch level. So the previously I repeat also here in the one, one of the head office sort of deployed systems. But it should be deployed now to the branch level and we reached our branch on the GIS address. So in this case, in this case, what lesson will gain from the past two, three years. So in this case, lesson learned from the past post and the others support and the digitalised journey of Ethiopost. The first thing is what we learn is the confirm general directions, which is what we need to be done and what we wish, what we have done. We confirm it, we confirm it. So in the digital priority and we should prioritise our digitalisation service. The confirm general direction have been done and acquired. The process digitalisation and optimization of business operation also just have been done. The counter automation, the system, the core centres, that was our achievement. The shipment, visibility and enable e-commerce service also, our just achievement. So our marketplace also, our achievement. The other thing is customised tools are feasible and effective. So development of integrations, main application with the domestic applications and the others application also acquired. Focus on business customers also, resource, I mean reach of customers with the online service, business to business and business to volume. I mean, which is our achievement. High interest on joint business collaborations have been just increased time to time because our brand have been just promoted. So our diversified different services also promoted. Just how we gained some interested in joint business collaboration have been acquired. So what our future plan? What should we have to be in the plan to the next level? The first thing is our digital strategy. The digital strategy should be one of our basic documents. So based on that document, all the organisers should be digital at their service, online at their service. So as one of the designated postal organisation in Ethiopia, so we have acquired the digital strategy for the next three years. So we should have planned the digital strategy and designed the digital strategy. So in this case, we also include the sustainable goods development and digital economy services, government, digital finance, e-commerce, and digital inclusion for the market also. Our digital plan to implement the next three years. Based on digital transformation plan, digital skills, digital infrastructures, our basement and standing point. So in this case, as I told you, our basic programmes and basic plans to be done in the next years, in the operational levels, just expanding our e-government services, one of our future, and what we are starting for to implement the service. Digitalized financial service also, our thematic area to be rolled out in this strategy. E-commerce also, the others, very, very eager to be planned and expand our services to the country level, also international. Logistique automation, also others, future plan to be implemented. So parcel NDMS, digitalizations, also. We should have to gain some technologies and some auto functions should be just acquired from local or international provider to apply and to excel our operational system. Mail service also, digitalization of mail service should be just done and we'll plan to implement for smarter and a very critical and technology-oriented service. Our next thematic areas to be, to make Ethiopian postal service, one of the leading postal service provider and the partner in logistic financial government service achievement of our vision. Based on the foundation of this services and thematic area will be, our network infrastructure, the application development and the integrations, and IT organization and capacity buildings also. The foundation to get the final destination of our missions. In case of that, we will also future plan to use the dot cost applications as we have acquired the domain name and we will also acquire service, I mean cyber security service and e-learning. We acquired the cyber security service and e-learning time to time. So as those application and service, we'll just plan to implement the e-commerce service, the secure email service, posting service, what we just waiting for the dot cost and the data service also, where we will just acquiring from the dot cost the dot cost security infrastructure, the dot cost government and compliance policies also, our futures to be just from the UPO, the dot cost group. The dot cost to share the service also will acquire then plan to implement on our operational service. So what the operational level service be excelled and our richest will be achieved to achieve our missions and vision of our organization. I think this is all over about the operational explanation of future cost in the little bit way. So this is all my presentation. So any questions and other will come. Thank you very much, Mr. Pricey and all possible. Thank you very much, Ibrahim. And thanks for a very comprehensive overview of the digital journey of the last few years. And we really appreciate that overview you provided to us. Just to remind our colleagues that today we said we're doing a high level business focused approach. Tomorrow we get to the technical issues, technical questions, we do a deep dive to the technical issues tomorrow. So waiting to see if there are any questions, any comments, any feedback on the overall approach that if your post has taken with the digital journey. And I will probably start with the first question, Ibrahim, while we wait for questions coming from the others. So in terms of your plan to go forward, do you see the, I noticed in one of your early slides you saw or you are showing us an increase in performance of things like EMS, your ranking on the various indices that UP produces and so on. Where do you see if your post positioning itself going forward in the future using digital? Do you think that your digital transformation journey will take you, you know, maybe even to the top, the world top five or top field or even beyond. And if so, exactly how do you think that will happen and maybe some some ideas to exactly where, what focus areas that other posts can, you know, without giving away too much of your secrets, obviously, but where other posts can probably love to focus their energies on what they're trying to do so they can also gain some traction in the digital space. Any thoughts on that? Okay, thank you. Thank you, Tracy. As you told that the EMS ranking is increased time to time and a good performer category. In case of the IT digitalizations, just we dream to be a top five performer on the continent, on the ecological law. What you should do, underline that I think the IT investment is very high to implement. Every operation should be digitalized and technology-wise operational service. So the, our dream should be just one of top five digitalized, organized, the postal service provided in the globe. So that's our dream. So we'll just refine and implement so many things and we'll collaborate with the other person and we will achieve our dream in the near future. And the other part of the question, where, what areas do you think posts can focus their energies on? So, and they know that if your posts are pretty large, post, right? So I've been there, so I've seen it myself. So it's a very large scale operation. But for posts around the world, smaller posts, even post your size, where do you think they should focus their digital transformation efforts on? And do you think, of course, I would love to, maybe you could emphasize the focus on e-commerce services and digital services using dot post. I know that you talked about that and we'll talk about tomorrow. But in addition to that, any areas that you would suggest that posts look to focus on to enhance their efficiencies, you know, get a competitive advantage over not just other posts, but certainly other players in the market who they may be facing competition from. You know, without naming any one in particular. Where do you think the post can can focus their attention on in terms of getting a competitive edge? Very nice question. The focus area of e-commerce, as I told you in the previously, we have the first focus area of our organization, the e-commerce. The e-commerce is very critical for today, technological advancement. Without e-commerce, the postal industry is not sustainable. So, the e-commerce is one of our, the focus area of e-commerce. So, post office should be just redesigned their ability on visualizations to be supplied on to be one of the e-commerce industry on their locations and existence. The first thing is that the other thing on the acquiring the governmental service including e-services. You know, most of the, our customer or our person shouldn't want to just reach their services on the postal service because the postal service are very different parts on their location. So, we plan to implement the e-service products. The other thing is that logistic moving products also our focus area, what we plan to implement is just digitalized the I mean the digitalized logistic service to acquire and to enhance our revenue including to satisfy our customer. The other thing is as you know the postal service should be just smarter and digitalized to reach our reachability and to satisfy our customer. This most of our focus area to be done in the near future and most postal designated, postal organization should be re-innovate their strategy to implement other new business to sustain their existence. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you very much for sharing that. And there's some follow there's some follow questions that have come from the audience they're actually in the Q&A box so and they're related. So, I'll post them both to you I'll read them out for you Ibrahim. From an anonymous attendee what is the biggest challenge faced by ethio post in digital transformation? And then a second question who has helped you the most in making progress in your digital transformation? Well, thank you very much for the person and to write this question. The first things to start from the second question who helped me helped us for the transformation of digital existence is the first thing is the our higher officials are very strong standing on the digital transformation. That's the very critical because if the higher officials don't have the digital standing the organization not be changed or not be transformed. So, the our higher officials has a strong standing on the digital digitalizations and the digital service modality service provider. So, that's what's a very critical advantage for to be here and the digital transformation. The other thing is our digital strategy 2025 digital strategies the other guidance so our government has its own advantage to implement the digital strategy and just evaluate where we are where we have been and where we are today. The other part of the UPU I appreciate the UPU because the UPU as one of organizations that support the designated postal countries to sustain their postal services to excel and to digitalize their service. So, the postal union support is not just and just accountable that is very, very high opportunity to give us and digitalize our service including so many applications and dot post. So, I appreciate and thank you the UPU organization that's all our support. The very second question is what's the challenge to digitalize the our organization. They're very critical the challenges just acquire more of the resource as the revenue, you know. There's just shortage of finance, you know. Most of the time the budget is just limited. So, the most of the designated organizations serve by their revenue. So, the digital strategy is a challenge even with I think the budget. That's one of our challenge the other challenges just using the digital services on the customers and the other partner also as one of our challenge but we promote, we just exercise the digital service for the customers so they trying to implement and they trying to utilize the services in the beginning and they acquired and achieve the challenge and remove our critical problem. So, that's was a challenge. Thank you very much. It's good to hear the fact that I guess the government of course the UPU we're key partners in this this transformational journey and that you you are you're marked upon and I think for other posts that's something that it's good learning. You know, so if you're working in your in your country a key partner I think this is for many you know, not just a post but for many areas of the this transformation journey having support from highest levels in your country the government level is very important to ensuring that that the actors such as the post can play a significant role and also move forward and of course as the UPU we're very proud to support you and your journey as well we're here to to ensure that all the posts and the entire post sector grows and moves forward and also can take advantage of the opportunities provided by the digital economy. So there's another question coming in it's from another not of us attendee it says it's asking I guess in relation to this whole in a digital space and again you know many countries have varying levels of infrastructure critical infrastructure so they're asking what is the quality of electricity and connectivity within the ethopost network I guess that will refer to your overall I mean your physical network as well as your obviously your virtual network you know how how as you move from urban to rural as you move out out into the spaces where you know things are a little more challenging how good is that quality and I guess how impactful would that be in this in your digital transformation journey you know is it critical is it a point of failure and I guess what will you recommend to do if there's any challenges to improve that unfortunately our most of the branches are around mid level towns so most of the European towns have get 24 hour electric service in case sometimes sometimes we have also get some challenges non electric service towns so such kind of connectivity have just plan to implement the other kind of service including the generator and other states but still now we didn't get the electric service and the electric service challenge because Ethiopia is one of the hub of water in the K continent so we provide electric city for the only towns so that's electric issue but to speak frankly and some of the our branches has get non electric cities so we just find out another options to get electric city including the other so the generator and regarding the connectivity in the previously the connectivity issue have been just done have been getting this such kind of issue so now we approach and we have an options to service provider the internet service provider the safari comm also join the markets and we have options and our provider legend provider to telephone also renovate itself and provide us service as per our request so just just like no more connectivity problem but sometimes it's happening that's what's issue thank you very much yes sir i think that's it's it's good you know so there's not not everything is all sunshine and and roses yes so that's good to know that you're grappling amendment the same challenges i think it's a couple of the the post of grappling with them but what's good to know is that you know there's a way to get around this and it should not be a show stopper you know five ways to deal with it i'm seeing in the chat there's some comments coming in just to just for the record just put them into the in the verbal record so as assefa has pointed out that there was recognition of members that achieved the best of all's improvement during 2009 and even from even then these members were Croatia Ethiopia and Mexico that's good information that was pointed out by Assefa Paul Donohue who is a very good colleague of ours from the UPU has pointed out what he's asked he's congratulating you for an excellent presentation he's he's saying it was very informative and like thing and he's excited to listen the part to tomorrow Assefa just put in the chat again that that EMS Ethiopia was one of the bronze level award of the EMS Cooperative Performance Award in 2010 he sees but but then he asks what happened after that you know and the decline it was why was there decline after that because we you know he pointed out in the in the presentation that you you know you took it up from from from where it was you know to to to good position now or better position now and I presume in the near future you'll see even better results but would you also pinpoint what may have happened with the EMS service over the last few years what happened to it and and what exactly is being done to improve it you know what what special measures have you taken to improve the EMS performance over the last few years yes to answer the answer for questions I think the this kind of up and down happened will be happened because so many things but in case of my presentations our existence on the international level not at the Africa level so in Africa we have still we are leader in the EMS and we will promote and we will renovate our service quality to to increase our rank to be the good performer in this next three years including including the automated transactional service and transport service and deploying the quality of service we'll plan to increase and deploy it our service to the qualified service of the EMS so just this is our what we plan in the near future thank you Sri Lanka Post Saman Mali saying greetings from Sri Lanka Post thanks a great permission so thank you thank you Sri Lanka appreciate what you shared thank you thank you very much thank you there's a question coming in from Osama Ritavi and I know Osama very well he's on a dot post Group Stereo Committee from Tunisia he's the vice chair of dot post group actually Osama's asking regarding the facilitation of trade between the neighboring countries in the region are there any projects I guess I'll finish the question does Ethiopia Post foresee any projects working together with neighboring countries in the region so I notice and you shared with us when we spoke to you actually in Addisom last year your plans to become a hub and sort of facilitate you know become the I guess the main facility of trade in Africa as a whole you know and the parts of the Ethiopian airlines I think is a clear example of what you're trying to do but specifically with neighboring countries do you are there any specific projects that maybe we should elaborate on in terms of facilitating cross border trade between Ethiopia and any of your neighboring your neighboring countries of course as I told you about previously we have agreed that the memorandum of understanding but the Ethiopian airlines to just deliver at the e-commerce service and goods but in the near future we plan to collaborate with the intercontinental and global organizations that are related to the postal and the diverse fair service including the e-commerce so we have an opportunity we have a plan so any firms can reach out with us to work with together so we have good opportunity All right and you hear that colleagues from the African continent you hear Ethiopias putting on the call to you know to reach out to them to if you want to work together on your facilitating cross border trade cross border e-commerce and this was an excellent I think opportunity to reach out and to get some traction together within the continent there's just one more comment in the chat Zimbabwe who's just saying thanks for the great presentation so you have just kudos to the presentation so far thank you very much thank you there are no more questions in the chat actually what I'm going to do is a piece into the chat tomorrow's our agenda so that folks can have a look at what we plan because I suppose sort of gave us Paul Donald gave us a you know looking forward to tomorrow so here's what tomorrow will look like for those who are coming back for the deep dive so what you saw today a game was the business version the business the business view and the operational positioning as exactly why they were doing what they were doing and you know to some extent you know the rationale and the objectives that if you oppose had in mind tomorrow we will look specifically in exactly what some examples they can't we can't talk about everything but certainly a few examples of what they did especially the one utilising the dot post platform so I'm excited to hear about that and as I said I posted the chat those who would like to know so feel free to register we have our maybe may some can repose the registration link in the chat for us so that for those who have not yet registered for tomorrow session you can do this do that although I believe your registration link give you registration of both days just in case just ensure you register for tomorrow please do register and join us again tomorrow at the same time where we'll go into a deep dive on the technical and you know the guts of exactly what was done on a few of the projects that is your post implemented specifically the dot post initiative so I don't see any further questions or anything coming back in from colleagues or I think we can call that a wrap for today Ibrahim and give back folks about 15 minutes of their time so I'd like to thank everyone for joining us thank you you really do appreciate your time and your participation thanks for your questions may someone's just placed in the chat the link to register for the webinar for tomorrow well in case you haven't done so as yet please register now so you can take a look at our technical deep dive on ethio posts digital journey so thank you very much Ibrahim thank you thank you thank you we'll see tomorrow or the technical part of the post we'll see tomorrow at the same time thank you very much and maybe we look forward to seeing all of you and maybe more of you tomorrow to register and to join us in part two thanks to all who came today and thanks to the tech team thanks to my colleague Mesa and all those who joined us today do enjoy the rest of your day or your evening or your night wherever you are and um enjoy thanks again bye bye bye bye bye bye and we can stop recording now Emmanuel Emmanuel are we still here t'es toujours là?


So our colleague Pete will tell me if there's anything I've left out and we should also give thanks to some of the other funders who have helped support us in this rather difficult situation. So, in this paper, we're looking at livelihood enterprise in the way that they create economies and economies of scale. And I'm going to make a proposition that the lack of an adequate framework means that the broader economic contribution of refugees and IVPs is largely hidden and unseen. This has been on individual livelihoods, but not on the cumulative effect. And it draws on our extensive previous work on urban livelihoods in conflict affected settings. But this photograph is a battery. It's not my photograph unfortunately because we haven't been there yet. As you can see it's a hub of activities actually was established in 2012 because about 80,000 people. Some of you may know the area. But just in nine short years we have a complex economy that is well connected. But what happens in the less well connected camps, and also significantly what happens when communities of refugees and IVPs displace people or refugees in the case of Afghanistan move to cities. So we know that. This is our provocative question, a world without camps and we know that the trends are that displaced people are increasingly moving to cities so all the world's 88 million or so displaced people, 55 million internally displaced and the remainder asylum seekers, estimates suggest that probably over between 50 and 60% live in cities, but the policy regime hasn't changed to catch up. And will they move to cities to seek opportunities in work and education and social support. They're vulnerable and often they join the ranks of the urban poor so they become a subset of the urban poor who are even more vulnerable than many of them because of their experiences. And what our academic research has done is to focus on the, the issue of the burden of refugees rather than their potential contribution as economic agents to local economic development. We know that migration adds to the scope and scale of local economies. So our study is a large comparative study we think the first one of the outcomes of protracted displacement in camps and cities and we have these three core concepts and we're talking about this concept of economies livelihoods and enterprise, and the livelihoods bit has received quite a lot. I shouldn't stand near the screen. The livelihoods bit has received quite a lot of attention but the enterprise hasn't. And so, yeah, I think we need to go further on don't we I'll leave you to do this. So what we find from an extensive literature review is that the, the contemporary understandings of, of the displaced people refugees is fragmented. There's been this focus on individuals and many, there've been many livelihoods programs that have sought to support refugees in their work in their move towards self reliance. But we don't really know the cumulative impacts of that on host societies. There's been a lot of work on the sustainable livelihoods framework which many of you may know which have been around since the 80s. There's a very familiar diagram which shows refugee, the refugee or the individual at the, at the heart and having five assets of human natural financial and physical capital subject to vulnerability and policies and probe, and the kind of policy context, and the to improve outcomes. But we think that there are huge gaps in knowledge and gaps in the literature and those gaps are in looking at the economic pathways, the temporal aspects how do, how does the ability and those assets which people bring to their livelihoods how do they There are gaps in knowledge about the positive contributions that people make in their livelihoods to their situation, both in camps and in urban settings. There's a lack of understanding about own account initiatives and how people drawn networks and Patricia will talk about that and, and the issues of trans border economies we think also have been being missed. So we define displacing economies as taking these two components of livelihoods and enterprise. And we define them as being understood by the collective economy created by refugees and IDPs through their livelihood activity enterprise and need for services and consumption and through their mutual support and diaspora. So there has been emerging work on refugee economies. We define refugee economy slightly differently we draw on previous study that we did with ID to think about the enterprise which is coming from displaced people themselves rather than the larger ecosystem of aid and how that influences the development and the local economy of areas. And so what we what we've done is we've tried to summarize this in a framework and the bit that I'm showing you at the moment is effectively the sustainable livelihoods framework. So we have here the individual refugee with their human natural physical financial and social assets. We have the vulnerability context in which they work policies institutions and process and we also think the economic context is important as well. And then we look at the the strategies which individuals adopt how do they use the networks and the outcomes. So we move on and then start to think about the enterprises and the initiatives the the economic initiatives which they start to look at. We've done something parallel to think about those business activities and they might be an individual or somebody doing repairs or somebody working in a house but sometimes it, it can accumulate into something much larger. So let's think about this Pentagon here. Sorry, Patricia. That we look at, we look at market access and they've the five corners of this Pentagon being what access to people have to markets. What is their legal status, what are their trade networks, what space do they have access and what financial resources. So the same vulnerability framework but then you get this interlinkage and an understanding of a much larger ecosystem. So I'm not going to hand over to Patricia who talked to you about some of our very preliminary findings from this research. So now that we have more or less now ahead. So what is it that we're looking for although the, the, maybe we need more time for the diagram but we don't have it so actually I would like to discuss with you some of the preliminary findings that we have from the quantitative survey and the pilot that we were conducting for the qualitative interviews in my work. So as Allison has previously mentioned we have completed the analysis and as also Lucy has mentioned previously we have completed the data collection in three countries actually we are moving now to the qualitative stage. But some of the preliminary findings have already started to emerge and as many times happen as you will know is that once you start having that you have thought about it, sometimes you have even more questions about it. So we're trying to understand what this status is actually saying to us. So first, before I start with moving to the data, let's let's start for those of you who are not familiar maybe with the different context that we're dealing with the actual right to work and right to open unknown enterprise unknown and enterprise in these different countries is different for for refugees in all of them. So we have the case in Afghanistan where retinas and IDPs we're dealing with they are citizens of the country so in principle, they are entitled to the same rights. We make, we can discuss whether those legal rights have the factor representation in reality and what challenges are they facing in order to access to livelihoods and also have opportunities for their own business. But that will be part of the discussion. Then in Ethiopia, there's this out of camp policy that it's only applied to those refugees that are capable to show that they are self reliant without working actually. So only those that can afford it can actually have access to this outcome policy. There is, and there is this 2000 and only retrients actually cannot have access to that. So in 2019 has been there has been a change in the legal framework for refugees and it seems that there's going to be new opportunities for refugees to actually work till this moment they didn't have access to all the right to work. Right now they are trying to start to change that they might have access to particular sectors that something similar to what it's happening or what have been going on in Jordan. So they may have access to particular sectors those where they cannot be there will not be a competition with energy with Ethiopian nationals. Then finally we have Kenya, where, where the government actually states that a new NCR also states that those refugees that actually need assistance should go to the camps so most of refugees are invited to be to be in camps and many times not so invited but forced to be in camps. Many times, actually they have rights, the right to work, according to the legislation but they have to get a permit this class and permit. Many times it's not so easily awarded and for in order to get that you also have to be a registered refugees many refugees are in cities are not registered refugees. And when they want to be registered they many times get the, the answer like go back to the camp and then you will be registered is easier for you, if not if you stay in the city is going to take really long for you to get there. So they also are entitled to register this but their business but at the same time there are many barriers for them to, they have to be formalized in a certain degree and we know many of these business are informative citizen. So if we go to the data. And we have this first numbers we, we are going to see that's the case in Afghanistan. And what we are proposing here with what we can think that this data is showing is actually how cities can be displaced people more opportunities to be resilient to shops and stressors. So in the case of COVID-19 this data was actually collected in January, February 2021. There was a moment in Afghanistan when the coronavirus was hitting hard, and we can see the impact of people that were working previous to this placement and the people that were actually working now. So in the settlement in backup, it's out the outskirts of, of Kabul, but it's more like an IDP camp. And that nearly 70% of people interview may were working previous to this previous to the COVID-19. And this was reduced significantly to 52%. While in the city, even if we depart from a really lower rate of people working we could see only 39% percent we're working we could see that when COVID-19 strike, this rise to 53%. They have more access to new employment and then maybe they were in need to get employment, maybe there was a reduction in remittances or whatever but they were capable to actually respond to that. We know it's there's a difference it seems that this indicates that actually in the camp you have more access to employment but we have some other data that actually points to the quality of that work and maybe not be enough to cover for needs because when we asked them what it's, what are your main concerns in camps in backup, actually 87% actually said that it was the lack of work that was really worrying them. While you take the same question to Jalalabad to the city it was only close to 25% and mentioned that it was the lack of unemployment. And they were otherwise pointed to the high cost of cost of living and the corruption as a main concerns in cities and not so much about work. Yeah. So, this one is not moving. Okay. So, also here in Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa, we wanted to reflect about the amount of human capital that is actually not absorbed and is not wasted somehow so we had the percentage of people that were actually working in this placement, both men and women you can see 71% and 41% of Eritrean refugees were working previous to this pavement only 34% and 7% were working afterwards we can discuss about the reasons later. If there are questions about that I have many other ways to why this is not working now. Okay, so I want to take you to through a journey with me. I want to explain to you the importance of networks. That's one of the things that is really important diagram where we're trying to understand the pathways of refugees. So, let me take you to the journey of this Somali guy that once first moved to the camp, where he arrived in the camp he decided not to register. He had a good connection with with the camp authorities or not a good relation, not a good connection with the camp authorities and instead, join this group of John made refugees and moved to the city to Nairobi. When he arrived there he actually had the opportunity to be hired by an enterprise line by a refugee. And in that enterprise he actually made a friend, a really good friend. And together they decided that in five years they will be saving all the money that they came in order to open their own business because they were not planning to be employed. They were not planning to be employees for the rest of their life they want to run their own stuff. At the time they were having issues with the police because they weren't, he was mostly having problems with police but also his friend because he was Somali Kenyan so many times he was confused with the refugees and they have they have been chased many times. So, this is the next step so five years after that we have our friends actually starting a business with his friend only five years after. They decided by, by buying the supplies from wholesalers for free. They were getting this for free they were repaying later with zero interest, and little by little they were they managed to grow and actually afford to buy from these wholesalers. They decided to associate with eight other businesses in order to expand their business and be able to actually get goods from China and Uganda, they were paying jointly for the shipment so they can divide the cost of doing that, and they were slowly slowly improving the quality of their business. They have also a direct direction with direct direct communication and frequent communication with their customers through a line that was all the time open for them to receive claims for goods. And finally have problems sometimes at customs with the chain there was a changing problems so now they have problems with customs when they were trying to import things from China and Uganda. And you can see, there's a movement of actors they are no longer first the way refugees now they are over. And finally we have this one that is much more complicated. So I think just very quickly to wrap up our findings are in early stage we want to map this back onto the framework. We think that the displacement of economies framework will do that, but what it also helps us do is accept as a reality the urban component of displacement and enable us to look at the positive elements of that. Thank you.


My name is Jarosław Ponder and I'm in charge of the Europe region. Europe region is very specific. We are very diversified. We have a lot of divides, but we are closing them. The 5G is only one of the examples. We're working on the digital inclusion, we're advancing the agenda on the accessibility. In parallel, as the ITU office for Europe, we're also working hand in hand with the UN family. We are integrating the ITU into the UN family to be able to deliver even better services on the ground. COVID has changed the way how we are delivering at the regional and the national level. I would say we doubled our speed of delivering. So many countries in particular during the COVID has expressed their interest of being supported and assisted in developing the governmental services. And this is exactly the beauty of the ITU office for Europe. We are always being there where we are needed. We have also continued to deliver the full offering of the ITU trainings provided through the ITU Academy and our network of the Centers of Excellence. During the COVID, we have translated too many courses into the online training. But on the other hand, we reached those who would never join us. We in fact doubled, in comparison to the last year, the number of the trained people. So I would not say that the COVID is a challenge. We succeeded to transform this into the opportunity, but of course, we have to adapt in the long term to the new way of work. This requires much more time and much more dedication, and we are fully committed to continuing.