New leadership takes over at UPU
Kenya’s Bishar Hussein and Switzerland’s Pascal Clivaz begin their four-year mandate
Kenya’s Bishar A. Hussein, the new director general of the Universal Postal Union, says he is committed to strengthening the global postal network by ensuring that all countries, from industrialized countries to developing ones and small island states, are fully integrated into the postal community.
“We must address the needs of all UPU member countries in an inclusive manner,” said the former ambassador and chief executive officer of the Kenyan Post at a ceremony today, during which the previous director general, France’s Edouard Dayan, transferred the reigns of the International Bureau, the UPU’s Berne-based secretariat.
The new head of the United Nations specialized agency for postal services is the first director general from sub-Saharan Africa. At the ceremony, he assured dignitaries and member countries he would work with all stakeholders to implement the Doha Postal Strategy, the organization’s four-year roadmap adopted at the Universal Postal Congress held in Qatar at the end of 2012. He said the strategy was based on a strong vision of a postal sector as an essential component of the global economy. “As director general, it will be my duty and commitment to implement this strategy in an efficient manner, for the benefit of all member countries,” said Hussein.
Hussein inherits the management of an organization dedicated since 1874 to ensuring the efficient exchange of postal communication among the Posts of the organization’s 192 member countries. The global postal sector has many challenges in the face of market liberalization, increased competition and the rapid evolution of communication technologies that are changing the face of postal services worldwide. As physical mail volumes decline, new communication and information technologies and the growth of e-commerce are opening up a swath of new opportunities for the world’s Posts in postal financial services, parcels and small-package delivery, and logistics and postal e-services, among others.
Switzerland’s Pascal Clivaz has also taken over as UPU deputy director general from China’s Guozhong Huang. A former Swiss Post executive, he was until his election the UPU’s director of finance and strategic planning since 2005.
Clivaz said during the ceremony that the new management’s task would be to think up solutions for a communication sector at a crossroads, as social habits evolve in the wake of technological evolutions and global crises. “Consumption patterns are ever changing, and economic constraints have caused many to rethink their public investments. Consequently, within the framework of a renewed pact for the sector, we must offer new openings, innovations and opportunities, so that the postal sector becomes not only an instrument of public power, but also a preferred lever for economic players.”
Hussein and Clivaz have each been elected by UPU member countries for a four-year mandate, renewable by election at the next Congress, to be held in 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey.
The new management will oversee the work of the Union’s secretariat leading to the annual meetings of the organization’s official bodies, the Council of Administration and the Postal Operations Council, ensure that Congress resolutions and decisions are implemented and work with the restricted unions (regional postal associations tied to the UPU) to ensure the creation of regional action plans to strengthen postal networks, in accordance with the Doha Postal Strategy.
The UPU, one of the smallest organizations in the UN system, has an annual budget of some 37 million Swiss francs (40 million US dollars). Its secretariat, the International Bureau, based in Berne, employs some 220 employees from all over the world to oversee the work of the Union in a wide range of areas. These include measures that range from helping member countries improve their quality of postal services to developing postal e-services and managing relationships with international customs, airlines and standardization bodies to speed up the dispatch, processing and delivery of global postal services. More than 368 billion letter-post items and 6 billion parcels are delivered annually by the world’s postal services, many of which also provide financial, logistics and electronic services.
The UPU recently launched the .post top-level sponsored domain, a secure Internet space for the postal industry to interconnect and secure global postal services, creating a new territory for the exchange of mail, just as the creation of the UPU in 1874 led to a unique global territory for physical postal communication.