Liberia seeks support for standardized address system

The Minister of post and telecommunication Dr. Frederick Nokeh has called on the international community and partners of the Universal Postal Union or UPU to support member countries, including Liberia to developing standardized addressing systems.

Dr. Nokeh, who made the call at a just-ended UPU Global Addressing Conference in Berne, Switzerland said, Liberia lacks standard addressing system and as such direction could sometimes prove to be challenging, especially for foreign nationals arriving here for the first time.

Speaking over the weekend at the closure of the conference attended by over 129 member countries, the LiberianPost Master General applauded the Universal Postal Union for its farsightedness and efforts to have brought together such best minds in postal administration to discuss the issues of addressing homes, and institutions of member countries.

According to Dr. Norkeh, the first attempt made by the Government of Liberia in 2013 in providing funding amidst competing institutional development priorities led to identifying vacant lots in the Congo Town community, using block model, but the exercise was discontinued due to the deadly Ebola outbreak.

He added that contact tracing in this community was effective and efficient whereas similar emergency services in other communities yet to be numbered were chaotic, inefficient and frustrating. Dr. Norkeh told reporters that the UPU Director General Bishar A. Hussein and his Saudi counterparts Mohammed S. T. Bentene pledgedtheir support towards achieving standardized addressing system which would enable member countries to reap benefits such as promoting good governance by facilitating coordination, tracking migration or social integration, enhancing commerce, national security, helping fight crime and improving the efficiency and quality of postal and other services.

The minister emphasized the need for budgetary increment for his ministry to carry out its responsibility, saying “sometimes budgetary constraint can stop us from participating in those UPU meeting.”

He said the objective of the conference is to explore how to extend access to address infrastructure, and discuss new ways of addresses to be developed and implemented faster at a lower cost particularly through the use of new technologies.

By Lewis S. Teh-Edited by Jonathan Browne