By Sonia Meetes, Cyber Era NG Special Correspondent, Switzerland
The Universal Postal Union’s Post4Health initiative continues to expand its reach by strengthening healthcare logistics through the postal network. Launched in 2025, the project in Côte d’Ivoire is supporting La Poste de Côte d’Ivoire in improving the safe and timely delivery of essential medical supplies, particularly in remote and underserved rural areas.
La Poste de Côte d’Ivoire plays a strategic role as a trusted logistics partner in key economic sectors, including healthcare. Through Post4Health, the postal operator is reinforcing its capacity to serve as a reliable link between health authorities, laboratories and healthcare facilities across the country, helping to ensure that vital medical products reach communities in need.
Enhancing last-mile delivery for healthcare
A key component of the initiative in Côte d’Ivoire is the public procurement of specialized transport equipment by La Poste de Côte d’Ivoire. This includes the acquisition of one truck, two vans, one light commercial vehicle and eight motorcycles. These assets will be used for the collection and transport of biological samples, blood bags and medical equipment, as well as the delivery of coolers and the return of laboratory results to relay laboratories and health facilities.
By strengthening its logistics fleet, La Poste de Côte d’Ivoire will improve service quality and ensure timely deliveries, even in hard-to-reach areas. This enhanced capacity will directly contribute to improved access to healthcare services and more efficient medical supply chains nationwide.
Speaking at the official equipment handover ceremony held in December 2025, Director of Cabinet of the Ministry of Digital Transition and Digitalization, representing the Minister, Laurent Raymond Assoua, praised what he described as “exemplary cooperation between the Ministry of Digital Transition and Digitalization, the Ministry of Health and La Poste de Côte d’Ivoire.”
“The digital sector is a powerful accelerator,” he noted, “but it does not replace wheels, motorcycles, or the women and men on the ground who reach the very last village. La Poste Côte d’Ivoire embodies this essential complementarity between digital and physical solutions in the service of the common good.”
Expanding healthcare logistics through partnerships
Post4Health was launched during the early stages of COVID-19 vaccine deployment, when many countries lacked the cold chain infrastructure required for safe delivery. It has since evolved to support the broader distribution of health products and services, leveraging the postal network’s last-mile rea
The project in Côte d’Ivoire joins other Post4Health initiatives implemented in countries including Argentina, Namibia and Botswana, demonstrating how postal operators can strengthen national health systems while diversifying their activities beyond traditional postal services.
The successful implementation of the UPU’s Post4Health relies on donor support. Contributions from La Poste (France) and Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) are strengthening healthcare logistics through the postal network and extending essential services to communities most in need.
Through Post4Health, the UPU continues to work with governments, health authorities and postal operators to build resilient, inclusive and sustainable healthcare delivery systems, ensuring that no community is left behind.
Waves of inspiration at the 54th International Letter-Writing Competition
Children often imagine, in play or simply out of curiosity, what it might be like to be someone else. But what happens when more than a million children around the world imagine the same thing? Then we discover the wonderful richness of their expression and how, despite their many different backgrounds, they share the same worries, dreams and hopes.
This was once again clearly demonstrated in the 54th edition of the Universal Postal Union’s International Letter-Writing Competition (ILWC). The theme for the 2025 edition was: “Imagine you are the ocean. Write a letter to someone explaining why and how they should take good care of you.” This theme demonstrates the way in which the competition has matured over the years to address increasingly complex global issues.
In the very first competition in 1971, the topic was simply “Write a letter to a friend”, leaving wide open what the children might wish to write about – whether a serious subject or simply sharing happy experiences with a friend. The 2025 theme is more demanding, but it also reflects greater confidence in children’s ability to grapple with complex ideas.
It requires children to process information they may have acquired at school, from the news, or from conversations, and to engage thoughtfully with the social, political and scientific dimensions of pressing and sometimes uncomfortable global environmental issues.
In 2025, more than 1.6 million children aged 9 to 15 from 65 UPU member countries took on this challenging task, marking a record number of participating countries. The competition takes place in two stages. Each country, through its national postal operator or ministry of education, organizes a national contest and submits its winning letter to the UPU. The UPU first checks that all entries meet the basic participation criteria before passing them on to the international jury, which then selects three global winners and five special mentions.
This year’s international jury included Jose Matheickal of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and Vidar Helgesen of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC/UNESCO), representing the two co-organizing agencies, as well as Pascal Clivaz, former Deputy Director General of the UPU, and marine biologist and influencer Carissa Cabrera.
The four jurors unanimously selected the three winners: Gold for Reyyan Demiriz from Türkiye, Silver for Phạm Đoàn Minh Khuê from Viet Nam, and Bronze for Kanlanfe Ingrid Ouali from Burkina Faso.
Khuê lives in a coastal city and has already gained first-hand experience in ocean protection through school-led beach-clean-up activities, while both Reyyan and Kanlanfe come from inland regions far from the ocean. Nevertheless, the letters of all three demonstrate a deep understanding of the ocean’s interconnectedness with all ecosystems on Earth, and of the devastating effects that its degradation has on the world’s population. In all three letters, the ocean speaks with similar warnings and calls for action, yet delivers its message in a deeply individual way.
In Reyyan’s letter, the ocean reminds humanity that it is older than all life on the planet, and that without it, life would not exist today: “You speak of progress, of dominion over nature, as if you are superior. But there is no ‘you’ and ‘I’. There is only ‘we’. You must remember: when I grow sick, the rain forgets its rhythm, the rivers run hollow, and the wind begins to carry sorrow instead of seed. When you heal the ocean, you begin to heal yourself.”
Khuê chose a particularly creative approach. In her letter, the ocean addresses the famous film director James Cameron, urging him to use his influence to make a film that would discourage people from treating the ocean badly: “You have understood that my body is not only made up of water and salt, and that I am a living world. My heart, however, has almost stopped beating. I cannot save myself, James! I
desperately need you! Please help me! Wake up humanity by making a new film!”
The ocean in Kanlanfe’s letter speaks to humanity in a hopeful yet admonishing tone, reminding people of the importance of its survival: “I am not simply a place for your holidays. I am a living being and a world of my own, but a world that needs you.”
While the winners of the ILWC are traditionally invited to a ceremony at UPU headquarters in Berne, Switzerland, the award ceremony for the 54th edition took place during the 28th Universal Postal Congress in Dubai, in front of delegates from the member countries. Gold medalist Reyyan Demiriz read her letter aloud, and the three winners joined UPU Deputy Director-General Marjan Osvald for a short discussion on their experience with the competition and its meaning for their future paths.
Reflecting on his role, which he first assumed in 2022, Osvald said that the experience had grown particularly meaningful for him over time. “Every year, I am deeply moved by how young minds perceive the challenges of our world,” he said. “Their letters renew my confidence that the future is in caring and capable hands – and remind us of our duty to do everything possible to help them succeed.”
The UPU’s ILWC not only continues to raise awareness of pressing global issues, but also honours the timeless art of writing. With the 55th edition of the competition approaching in 2026, we can be sure that the next generation of young writers will once again inspire us with their reflections on why human connection matters in a digital world.
This article first appeared in Union Postale Autumn 2025.
