The Universal Postal Union has reaffirmed its commitment to providing technical assistance to Palestine Post by pledging funds to better equip its post offices.
While in Berne, Minister Safa Nasser Eldin thanked the UPU for its efforts (Photo: UPU)
The UPU will provide 100,000 CHF (104,000 USD) to enable the Post to buy much needed equipment, such as a van to transport mail items, an electricity generator and wireless barcode readers.
UPU Director General Bishar A. Hussein and Safa Nasser Eldin, Palestine’s minister of telecoms, information technology and postal affairs, signed the agreement on Wednesday in Berne, Switzerland.
“This project will assist Palestine Post to continue to improve the efficiency and reliability of its services to meet customer needs,” said Hussein.
For her part, the minister thanked the UPU for its efforts. “The UPU has helped us a lot during the last few years both financially and through capacity-building,” Nasser Eldin said.
“Providing the proper equipment will improve postal services. The income generated would mean that we would not be obliged to ask donor countries to help us and could self-finance our operations,” she added.
Long-term help
The agreement continues the long-standing technical assistance the UPU has provided to Palestine in recent years to prepare the latter to directly exchange international mail with the Union’s member countries.
The most recent project focused on training postal staff, while another centred on boosting the technical quality of postal services.
Palestine Post has a network of 127 post offices. The main services provided are express mail delivery of inbound items, ordinary and registered letters, parcels, telegrams and postal boxes.
Letters are delivered either to customer premises or to post-office boxes. The Post also acts as a third-party agent, paying social benefits on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
Palestine has held observer status at the UPU since 1999.
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