This is part of the government’s effort to reposition the struggling Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) for a digital economy

Information, Communications and the Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo flags off initial medical trucks at the Communications Authority

Kenya is turning to its national postal network to improve the delivery of essential medicines to remote communities.

On Monday, the government unveiled six refrigerated trucks under the Post4Health initiative to enable the state-owned postal operator to transport temperature-sensitive medicines and other medical products to underserved regions.

The project is backed by Sh22 million from the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and Sh42.93 million from Kenya’s Universal Service Fund (USF), bringing the combined investment to about Sh64.93 million.

The initiative seeks to strengthen PCK’s cold-chain logistics and improve the safety, reliability and speed of last-mile medical deliveries, particularly in communities facing barriers to healthcare access.

Speaking during the unveiling of the trucks, Information, Communications and the Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo said the initiative would help address urgent needs in healthcare and food security.

He also underscored the importance of the postal network and the workers, who receive, sort, transport and deliver consignments, saying their role in connecting communities remains important even as communication methods change.

The project follows Kenya’s April 2025 agreement with the UPU to strengthen PCK’s capacity to distribute healthcare products and technologies.

The investment comes as PCK seeks new revenue streams amid a steep decline in traditional mail volumes and growing competition from private courier companies.

Communications Authority of Kenya Director-General David Mugonyi said digital transformation had created a paradox for postal operators.

According to him, traditional letter volumes are shrinking as consumers embrace digital communication, while e-commerce is creating fresh demand for parcel delivery and logistics.

Data from the authority shows PCK handled 577,694 domestic letters in the April-to-June 2026 quarter, up 1.8 per cent from the preceding quarter but 70.2 per cent lower than a year earlier.

Its domestic parcel volumes for the 2025/26 financial year also fell 33.2 per cent to about 993,099.

Private courier operators, meanwhile, handled 14.4 million domestic parcels in the quarter, an increase of 9.3 per cent from the preceding three months, highlighting the growing importance of logistics in the postal market.

“The Post is not disappearing; it is evolving,” Mugonyi said, adding that the future of postal services would depend increasingly on logistics, parcel delivery, fulfilment, financial services and digital solutions.

The authority is reviewing the postal and courier market structure to reflect the shift towards e-commerce and digitally enabled fulfilment, while strengthening service quality monitoring.

It installed radio-frequency identification monitoring equipment in 10 additional post offices in the last financial year, bringing the total under the system to 30.

Post4Health also illustrates the expanding role of the Universal Service Fund, administered by CA, in extending essential services beyond commercially attractive markets.

The authority launched its 2023–2027 USF strategy in 2025, with a planned investment of Sh40 billion to expand digital access and address connectivity gaps in underserved areas.

By May 2025, the authority said the fund had connected nearly 800,000 people in underserved areas, provided broadband connectivity to 886 secondary schools, converted 56 public libraries into digital resource centres and connected 42 courts to digital networks.

Other projects include plans to deploy 2,500 kilometres of fibre-optic infrastructure across 19 underserved counties and establish 1,450 ICT hubs nationwide.

More recently, the authority has begun modernising 17 post offices in underserved counties through local-area network infrastructure to improve their digital capabilities.