The annual session of the Council of Administration (CA) of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) was held from last 22 October to 11 November at its headquarters in Berne, Switzerland.
Note that it was still not possible to submit to the CA fundamental aspects of the UPU reform process (organisation structure for the next cycle and mechanisms to streamline decision-making) due to a lack of consensus and the weakness of the presented document and proposals. The member countries were to submit comments regarding this UPU reform process up to the end of November 2011 to ensure better reflection of the three already agreed base principles: the UPU will continue to be an intergovernmental organisation, continue to be oriented towards the sector and should increasingly allow the participation of new sector entities.
The definition of the World Postal Strategy for the 2013-16 cycle is also being finalised. The main concern now seems to be the ability to prioritise the various UPU strategy programmes and activities, adjusting the Doha Postal Strategy (DPS), as it is known, to the UPU’s limited budget.
The CA also approved the Union’s budget for 2012, envisaging spending on the order of 36,087,950 Swiss francs (about 29 million euros) and maintaining the value of each contribution unit at 41,770 Swiss francs (33,650 euros), as in the first year of the 2011-12 biennium.
The .post project the UPU has been developing with a view to creating an internet domain for the postal community was much criticised in Committee 1 (C1). But the CA still approved the new version of the Domain Management Policy (DMP), allowing the project’s development to continue and the presentation at the next session of the financial impact and implementation plan for the revised project, in accordance with the critical comments presented in C1.
The joint CA/POC session will be held from 13 February to 2 March 2012.
