Members of the Strategic Planning Group recently met in Madrid to forge ahead with drafting the Doha Postal Strategy.
Members of the International Bureau’s strategic planning and economic and regulatory affairs departments joined representatives from about 10 member countries in Madrid last week to hash out the UPU’s next strategic blueprint.
A first draft of the global strategy was presented to the Council of Administration last November. A more substantive version of the document will now be scrutinized by the Postal Operations Council (POC), set to meet at UPU headquarters from 26 April to 13 May.
Participants in Madrid streamlined the number of goals contained in the original document from six to four to bring more focus to the strategy. These new goals (improving the interoperability of postal networks, providing postal technical knowledge, competence and expertise, promoting innovative products and services, and fostering the postal sector’s sustainable development) will be presented at the POC.
After the POC, the global strategy will then be discussed at a series of regional round tables, where regional stakeholders, including the UPU’s restricted unions, will add their input and regional priorities.
Future roadmap
Once formally adopted at the next Universal Postal Congress in Qatar in 2012, the Doha Postal Strategy will become the UPU’s 2013-2016 strategic roadmap.
According to Elena Fernandez, chair of the group in charge of strategy implementation, who hosted the meeting in Madrid, participants examined the former world postal strategies (Beijing, Bucharest and Nairobi) to analyze their strengths and weaknesses and looked at the context and trends of today’s postal sector. “We were able to build bridges between the past and the future,” she said.
Fernandez added that discussions also focused on how to better align the UPU’s various programmes, aimed at helping to achieve the strategy, with the overall goals of the roadmap.
Working closely together
The close participation in the Madrid meeting of member countries charged with looking at the reform of the UPU was also welcomed. Participants were able to better understand the impact the proposed new strategy could have on the UPU’s structure and find leads on how the organization could be adapted to effectively implement its plans, said Murray Buchanan, director of economic and regulatory affairs at the UPU International Bureau.
“Strategic planning and Union reform are working closely together because the organization has to adopt a structure that will allow it to fulfil the goals of its global strategy.”
To give two relevant examples, the organization needs better, faster and more flexible decision making than the current structure allows, he explained. And although there are 83 independent postal regulators in the world, the UPU does not have a platform dedicated to them.
Currently, governments are represented by the Council of Administration and designated postal operators by the Council of Postal Operations, official UPU bodies. Other postal stakeholders are represented by the Consultative Committee, but they have no decision-making powers.