The Quality of Service Fund (QSF) had a busy 2010, with the approval of 58 new projects with an estimated total budget of 7 million USD and the completion and evaluation of 28 other projects.
Since April 2001, the QSF has funded more than 570 projects benefiting some 150 Posts. Its aim is to improve the quality of flows of inbound letter mail subject to terminal dues payments, in order to make the national postal service and international flows speedier, more reliable and more secure. The QSF has become a vital component of the UPU's development cooperation system.
This year, postal operators in Hungary, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Romania, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Uzbekistan received awards for their well-managed projects, which kept to the original budget and achieved the objectives that had been set.
One of the award-winning projects that exemplifies the usefulness of the QSF is the project to extend the postal distribution network in the Philippines. In a sparsely populated country, where many people live in remote areas and where most mail is transported by road, often in vehicles that have seen better days, the QSF financed the purchase of 49 postal vehicles.
Through this purchase, the designated operator PhilPost was able to extend its network and increase the number of postal routes. According to experts, this distribution network is expected to grow at an annual rate of 3%.
This acquisition has brought PhilPost closer in line with UPU standards, as the operator has increased the frequency of transportation and exchanges of mail dispatches between the national office of exchange and post offices. It has cut its delivery times to less than three days for intra-regional items, to two to four days for inter-regional items, and to one to three days for international mail.