On Thursday 5 October, during the Strategy Summit Closing Ceremony of the 4th Extraordinary UPU Congress in Riyadh, 13 Posts received awards for their level of development and their regional or global influence.
The Riyadh Congress gave Posts the opportunity to reflect on new ways of adapting to the many challenges they are facing, including opportunities for Posts to respond to changing customer needs.
As UPU Vice Director General Marjan Osvald said, "Together we can overcome any challenge that confronts us". This statement underlines how essential the UPU's role is for the good of the postal sector.
Mr. Masaiko Metoki, Director General of the UPU, explained that postal operators have been classified into 10 levels of postal development, which allows members of the same group to compare themselves rather than seeing competition between Posts against the most advanced. This year, the median score for postal development worldwide has increased, highlighting the significant progress made in 49 countries.
Mr Metoki then spoke about the 2023 report on the state of the postal sector. This report contains many conclusions, including the link between the maturity of the postal sector and economic resilience. When the postal sector is developed and functioning well, it plays a vital role in encouraging a country's economic resilience. He said "We can only hope that this year's report will lead us towards unity and innovation, to shape a postal sector that is not just more efficient, but exemplary."
Thanks to the data sent to the UPU by its members in 2022, the UPU has been able to calculate an integrated postal development index for 2023 (2IPD). This index is based on 4 criteria: reliability, which assesses the development of quality of service from a speed and predictability perspective; reach, which evaluates the level of postal connectivity of the country with the rest of the world, from an outbound perspective; relevance, which measures the relative success of different postal business models and activities, from a demand perspective; and resilience, which estimates the postal capacity to overcome economic, social, technology and environmental shocks in a sustainable way.
The 2IPD index shows the strengths and capabilities of each Post compared with its peers.
The awards ceremony began with the Regional Champions category: Chinese, Estonian, Brazilian, Moroccan and Ethiopian Posts were honoured. In the Rising Stars category were the Posts from Slovenia, Oman and Uzbekistan. Finally, in the Postal Excellence category, 5 Posts were recognised as the best in the world: Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Japan and France.
Ambassador Philippe Thiebaud, head of the French delegation to the Congress, and Jean-Paul Forceville, representing La Poste Groupe, were extremely proud to receive the Postal Excellence Award.