The 24th Universal Postal Congress ended its three weeks of discussions in Geneva today with anoptimistic outlook for the future of the worldwide postal industry.
“From Bucharest to Geneva, the whole tone has changed. Four years ago, an air of pessimismhung around the future of postal services” declared Edouard Dayan, Director General of theUniversal Postal Union (UPU). “Today, our agenda includes e-commerce, technological development,intelligent mail, facilitation of international trade and exchanges, electronic money transfers,sustainable development, international cooperation, postal infrastructure at the service ofdevelopment policies, and development – rather than downsizing – of the universal service”.
At the closing session of Congress, the Director General also described the many faces of asector which is active on all fronts of the global economy, in the face of burgeoning newtechnologies and the growth of globalization and international trade.
The Universal Postal Congress, held every four years, brought together representatives of 179of the UPU’s 191 member countries. Over 2,500 people, among them 70 ministers, representing thesecountries, international organizations and other stakeholders in the world postal sector werepresent, breaking all records for participation in a Congress.
One of the most important decisions of Congress, the UPU said in a statement, was theadoption of the next world postal strategy, which focuses on modernising global postal services atall levels, whether in terms of institutional reform or quality of service improvement, postalsecurity and universal postal service, or raising awareness of the impact of postal services on theenvironment and climate change.
Meanwhile, the adoption of a new Postal Payment Services Agreement will enable postaloperators to move more quickly towards offering faster, more secure and more accessible electronicmoney transfer services to unbanked populations in regions that are poorly served by formal moneytransfer networks.
Responding to calls from developing countries for more financial and technical support fortheir efforts to improve their postal networks, the lifespan of the UPU Quality of Service Fund hasbeen extended until 2016. Since its creation in 2001, this Fund has established itself as aunique source of funding for projects to improve the universal postal service in the developing andleast developed countries. It has already financed more than 400 projects totalling 60 million USD.
The Congress also examined 300 proposals and resolutions relating to the structure of theUPU, its mission and finances, and to international exchanges of letters, parcels and moneytransfers between postal operators the world over.
Kenya was elected to chair the UPU Council of Administration and Greece will head the PostalOperations Council. These two bodies ensure the continuity of the UPU’s work between Congresses.The next Universal Postal Congress will be held in 2012 in Doha (Qatar).
