23 August 2021
Question from Agence de presse panafricaine: “What do we have to bear in mind at the end of your time as the head of the UPU? Especially as an African?”
I have been the head of this UN body for the last nine years. I was elected for the first time in 2012. I had the full support of all African heads of states, who proposed me as a candidate from Africa, for which I am very grateful to them. The position of a secretary general of a UN body is not an easy assignment. It requires certain knowledge of the industry, it must be someone who has experience, and most importantly someone who has got the depth to understand the dynamics of multilateralism. Someone must be able to bring together diverse views and think of member countries. And, therefore, my experience is that there is no monopoly of any knowledge or idea with any group of people. I can see that you have a book in your hands – the summary of achievements that we have done. We have undertaken one of the most fundamental reforms of the Union that has ever happened in the last century, I would say. The changes that we have introduced were supposed to reform the Union and raise its role and relevance. It was very challenging but also a very exciting experience for me. It was a career fulfillment for me, I started from the lowest management level of the Post and today I am here. I want to say that this is a message for every African child. When you are given the opportunity, you can rise to the highest level. And I can say that you can perform at the highest level. I come from one of the most rural villages in Africa, and I have gone through experiences like any other African child has gone through. But I put my trust in God, I worked hard and I got the support of everybody and I was able to lead this organization for nine years. So, I am leaving behind today a very united Union, which we have been able to balance. We have created regional balance in the Union’s membership. We have created gender balance in the Union. And we have introduced a number of reforms that have created a level playing field for every country whether you are big or small. So I can talk about all the achievements the whole day, but I can say that it is something that we are very proud of and I hope that the next generation will take over from me. We want to see the Union represent the whole face of the globe. People from the Pacific, people from the Caribbean, people from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe – everybody should be there. And our strength is our unity. So, these are some of the experiences that I wanted to share with you.
Question from Quotidien Le Mandat: “You have mentioned that the Post was facing competition from private companies, and you have mentioned the responsibility of governments. My question is whether you address some reforms for all the governments to help you with infrastructure, logistics, to better accomplish your mission.”
First of all, the responsibility of ensuring an efficient postal network is the responsibility of the government, that is a signatory to the treaty, and the fundamental principle of universal service is also taken over by the government, which is supposed to implement it. What the UPU does, we develop a strategic plan every five years for the Post. We have just approved the Abidjan Postal Strategy for the next five years. This is a high-level strategy. Every country now needs to look at this strategy in order to calibrate their own along with this one. So, these are governments who ensure the management, and the staffing of posts to ensure that they are properly managed but also properly resourced and given the capability to provide the service. I want to disqualify one notion: that the private sector is more efficient than the Post, this is not true. The managers of the posts have come from the same universities, they have the business knowledge like everyone else, just like in the private sector. And the only difficulty is the financial one, which is a valuable factor. So with proper resources and appropriate busines plan and good management, I believe that postal organisations can perform as good, if not better than the private sector. There is something that I want to underline here – for the press and for everyone. The Post is an important infrastructure for social and economic development of any nation. Just like the electricity, the roads and other government infrastructure, we also need to invest in the Post. Because the Post can become a vehicle for small and medium enterprises to be able to develop their services. We provide social services – every government service can be run through the postal network. This is a one-stop shop for the governments to provide services. This is a service that does not discriminate against anyone – anyone can access postal services. I will give you a good example – financial services. Not everyone can go to a bank because of different conditions, but you can access the postal service and do your transaction without any difficulty. This is a fundamental responsibility of the governments because it helps citizens. So once again I have got a passion for postal service and I know that the postal service is an infrastructure for social and economic development.
Question from Fraternité Matin: “What are the difficulties you faced during your tenure? As the General Director of the UPU, how do you see the future of the postal service in Africa?”
My challenge as the Director General. As I said, it is a very political office. And the challenge that the Post in general is facing is huge. Therefore, to develop the policies that every government would adapt and move together is a challenge. Countries are not at the same level of economic development. You can be efficient and everything is fine in your country here but when the mail moves to the next country and it sits at the airport for one week, then your customer will get disappointed. So, we have 192 different networks and we try to make them act like one network. They have many different rules, regulations, customs and many other challenges. And the future of the African post. I think there is a very bright future for the African post. All of them understand the challenges very well. They participate in the activities of the Union. I see the young generation who went to universities, who are well educated take leadership in these institutions. And I am beginning to see ministers who are very supportive of the postal network in Africa. So, the only advice that I am going to give them is that please go more digital, go into e-commerce and financial services – these are the two main goals. The traditional letter mailing business is going down, no one writes that many letters these days. So, the parcel and the packet and business mail is growing very fast. The post office in Africa must be in that space. So, that’s my advice to the Post in Africa.
Question from Agence Ivoirienne de Presse: “You have mentioned earlier that for the 27th Congress to happen here, in Abidjan, was not easy. And there were difficulties related to COVID-19, while we know that COVID appeared only at the end of 2019, and the last Congress that took place in Africa was in 1934. So, based on all these facts, my question is what the problem is really.”
I love that question. Why did we not have the Congress since 1934? The answer is straightforward for me. I might be mistaken but in 1934, Egypt was still under the colonial rule. I think for the most part of 1940s and 50s, most of our governments in Africa were under colonial rule. So, we didn’t exist. So, it’s only in the 60s and 70s and 80s when we started getting our independence and we have joined the UPU. Now, Cote d’Ivoire was the first country that requested to host the Congress in 1999 at the Beijing Congress. I was there in Beijing, and it was approved. We were supposed to have the Congress in 2004 here. Unfortunately, political force majeure happened in this country. And we lost the Congress. The Congress was moved to Romania. And the Congress was held there. So, Africa lost the first opportunity. And in 2004 in Romania, Kenya said they wanted to have the Congress. It was approved. And we worked in 2005, 2006, 2007. And then end of 2007 we had an election, and we had exactly similar situation like Cote d’Ivoire. The Congress was taken away and taken to Geneva. Cote d’Ivoire came back, they don’t give up. They said they wanted to hold the UPU Congress in 2014 here. We did all the preparations, we did everything, we came here, when we were just ready to do the job, Ebola struck the region. And there was not a single case in Cote d’Ivoire, it was in neighbouring countries. Member countries got scared to come to Cote d’Ivoire. I said I would go to Cote d’Ivoire myself, I have 14 million brothers and sisters in Cote d’Ivoire, I will go to Cote d’Ivoire myself and I came there. I said I would live and die with my brothers. Then the venue moved, it was taken to Geneva, and I felt that was the end of the story. Cote d’Ivoire came back and said that we needed to hold the 2020 Congress here. And two other countries – Tunisia and Ethiopia – also said they wanted to hold it. As an African leader of the Union, I did not want to see three countries from my region fighting for the Congress. And we used diplomacy to solve the problem. Tunisia stepped down. And then Ethiopia also stepped down for Cote d’Ivoire. But we had a solution for Ethiopia, we said we were going to hold an Extraordinary Congress in 2018 in Addis Ababa. When we were just going to Addis Ababa, there was a small disturbance that happened in the country, and people wanted to say no, we cannot go to Africa again. We insisted the Congress must take place in Ethiopia, we said no excuse. Then Cote d’Ivoire was preparing again last year. When we were just ready, COVID-19 has struck the whole world. I said this is juju, we must get rid of this juju. We should break this cycle. So, we postponed the whole Congress by one year. And we were almost ready again. And then we had some other stories. We needed to hold some part of this Congress in Geneva. So, the question was why. And people said no, we cannot divide this Congress, we are going to have it physically and in Africa and in Cote d’Ivoire. So that’s why if you were here the first two days, there was a big debate here. Finally, I think member countries had got the sense of it, and finally we have broken the juju and we have the Congress here in Africa. I hope that I answered your question why we have been losing these Congresses. (applauds)
Question from Mediainfodirect.net: “So, as you have climbed all the stages of the UPU, what will be your next challenge?”
You know, this guy gave me a nice dress of a chief. And they made me the chief of Grand-Bassam. So I want to go and see my community, I want to go and see the family, I want to go and see the farms. So, we have a joke with my friends, I am waiting for this opportunity: once I hand over, I go back. But on a serious note, I have never given a lot of attention to what I am going to do next. I had a heavy responsibility to ensure that this Congress goes without any mistake. So, I focused all my attention to ensure that this Congress is happening and is successful. So when I hand over my responsibility, I want to take a long break and then from there I will decide what to do. But I would like to support the postal networks in Africa, in my private capacity, to provide some advice, I will always be there for them.
Question from Live TV: “In your introductory words, you gave us a brief assessment of your work, you have also spoken of all the measures that you have taken as the head of the UPU. So, my question is what are the concrete results of your work? Can we say that today the UPU is on good path based on the results that you had?”
The first question is a very wide-open question. I can take the whole day to answer it. But I will refer to a small magazine that we have produced and you can also look at the video which we have played during the opening ceremony. It should give you the highlight of some of the concrete results that we have done. But in brief I can say this, this is the first time in history that I did four Congresses: in 2016, 2018, 2019 in Geneva, and that was the most dramatic Congress, because the Union was just about to break apart. The United States of America said that they would quit the Union, and that would be the beginning of the fall of the Union. I had to step in with my team and create and develop and block a victory option that brought the countries together. And we saved the Union from abyss, almost a crisis. So that’s a concrete result. There are many other results that I can talk about. Holding this Congress under this pandemic situation and changing the rules and putting this hybrid system in place in itself is a concrete result. We have done structural reforms of the Union. I have reduced what we call the length of the time we used to have sessions through an institutional reform. We have also created, as I told you, gender balance within the Union. And also rebalancing the membership of the Councils. We had a very imbalanced Council for 44 years. Developing countries were underrepresented. So, I put up a very major initiative to re-balance it. It took us 44 years and 10 Congresses, but we fixed it in 2018 in Addis Ababa. For the first time, we have added eight additional seats for developing countries. And four of them have gone to Africa. And this is the first time they are going to do the elections two days from now. So, again, we brought a proper and fair geographical distribution of seats for decision making purposes. Madam, I am writing a book on all the achievements so you can wait for my book to get more details.