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Post Offices

Turning the post office into a force for financial inclusion

photo by: Amortize, Flickr Creative Commons

In the old times, the post office was the main connector between cities and villages, moving letters and money to every corner of the country, and contributing towards the territorial consolidation of states under construction.

Nowadays in developing countries, the post office is often seen as an old, inefficient, deficit-making, and outdated public service which has not been able to keep up with the evolving markets. It takes some imagination to see the post office as a potential engine for economic growth and social inclusion.

How can post offices improve access to remittances and financial services in rural Africa?

Sanket Mohapatra's picture
 Photo:istockphoto.com

We have just released a Migration and Development brief prepared by our colleagues Jose Anson and Nils Clotteau of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) based in Berne, Switzerland. There are an estimated 660,000 post offices in the world, larger than all bank branches combined. In this brief, Jose and Nils explore the role that postal networks can play in providing money transfers (remittances) and basic financial services to low-income people living in developing countries, in particular those in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.