PAN AFRICAN POSTAL UNION POSTAL TRANSFORMATION FORUM FOR AFRICAN CEOs AND PREPARATORY MEETING FOR UPU WORLD CEO FORUM

Transcription

1 PAN AFRICAN POSTAL UNION POSTAL TRANSFORMATION FORUM FOR AFRICAN CEOs AND PREPARATORY MEETING FOR UPU WORLD CEO FORUM Speech by MR. YOUNOUSS DJIBRINE, SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE PAN AFRICAN POSTAL UNION (PAPU) AT THE OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY 14 th August 2017, Cairo (Egypt) 1

2 Mr. ELSAGHIR ESSAM MOHAMED, Chief Executive Officer of Egypt Post and our honourable host; Mr. Bishar Hussein, Director General of the International Bureau of the UPU; CEOs or representatives of African Postal Organizations present; Members of the Press; Distinguished delegates; Ladies and Gentlemen. On behalf of the entire African Postal Fraternity and indeed, on my own behalf, allow me to extend a warm and brotherly welcome to you: Bonjour, Good morning, Bom dia, Sabah al-khair, Ladies and gentlemen, It gives me great pleasure to address you this morning in this sumptuous and splendid Sheraton Hotel in Cairo, the historic capital city of the Arab Republic of Egypt, on the occasion of the official opening of the Postal Transformation Forum for African CEOs and the preparatory meeting for UPU World Postal CEO Forum, to be held in Moscow in September. I wish to express my profound gratitude to the host country, Egypt, for inviting me to this vital and strategic event during which we will brainstorm on how the postal sector can be transformed for the long-lasting benefit of our populations. 2

3 Furthermore, I would like to sincerely thank and commend the organizers of this conference, namely Egypt Post, for this brilliant initiative which will go a long way in creating awareness on the enormous business opportunities for the sector in a dynamic social, economic and technological environment. Ladies and gentlemen, On behalf of member states, the PAPU General Secretariat and indeed, on my own behalf, I am grateful to the government and the people of the Arab Republic of Egypt for the traditionally warm welcome accorded to us since our arrival yesterday in Cairo, the city of the pyramids. That said, allow me say a heartfelt THANK YOU to my very dear friend, ELSAGHIR ESSAM MOHAMED, the Director General of Egypt Post, who not only took the initiative of inviting African postal leaders to Cairo within a relatively short time, but also took charge of all activities relating to the organization of these meetings as well as accommodation and travel expenses for all delegates. This gesture, which confirms the commitment of the authorities of this great country to the African cause and to the consolidation of pan-africanism following the footsteps of the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, is a noble effort that deserves the profound gratitude of the African postal community. These efforts were noted during the formal launching of the Cairo Regional Postal Training Center on 29 th April 2017 and for which the Pan African Postal Union is proud. Please do not miss this opportunity to visit this structure that is already operational. As you are aware, the opening of this Center is the result of the signing ceremony on 5 th April 2017 in Bern, Switzerland, of the Cooperation Agreement between the UPU and PAPU on the creation of two Regional Postal Training Centers respectively in Egypt and Cameroon, followed by the signing of a 3

4 special Agreement on the said Centre on that same day by the Director General of the UPU and the CEO of Egypt Post. The choice of Cairo as a training center for English-speaking countries was made during the 35 th ordinary session of the PAPU Administrative Council held in Khartoum, Sudan in In this regard, we wish to escalate our sincere feelings through you to Egyptian Authorities, especially the President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, His Excellency ABDEL FATTAH AL-SISSI for all the actions of Egypt Post towards the emergence of the postal sector in Africa. The African postal fraternity expresses to you its feelings of gratitude. Allow me, ladies and gentlemen to thank the Director General of the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), my brother and friend Ambassador Bishar Hussein who is among us here and who has never spared any effort to support the African Post. The meeting that opens today is very important considering that it will allow participants to give their views on how these topics relate to the broad topic, namely transformation of the postal sector. By consulting the proposed program, I can assure you that all the topics listed below and to be debated during our event are highly strategic and cut across a broad spectrum of areas, including: E-commerce; Operational capacity Building; Financial services; E-services; Automation of postal processes and procedures; and Postal Addressing. 4

5 Ladies and Gentlemen I would like to encourage you to engage in open and frank dialogue on each of these topics so that our posts can add value to our economies and effectively contribute to socio economic development of our respective countries. I wish to add that two of the above-mentioned topics are hearty draw my attention. These are Postal Regulation and Electronic Commerce (e-commerce). As you are aware, postal regulation is one of the major concerns of the General Secretariat of the Pan-African Postal Union. Our main focus is to be craft harmonized policies as well as develop legislative and regulatory frameworks at both regional and continental levels with a view to creating a dynamic business environment that will attract investments, foster sustainable development and create competitive regional markets in the postal sector. As you may be aware, PAPU is currently spearheading a process that should eventually lead to harmonization of postal policies, legislative and regulatory frameworks for Africa as recommended by the African Union s Agenda 2063 entitled: The Africa we want. This initiative is in recognition of the fact that our continent needs to be united. Indeed, the Africa we want should have a single legal framework applicable across the continental postal territory. The muchdesired socioeconomic integration would remain a distant reality if for instance, Nigeria continues to have its own policy while just a stone s throw away, Chad has a different one simply because the two neighbouring countries belong to different regions and/or linguistic affiliations, whereas, in reality, they both share the identical economic and sociological realities. 5

6 Mindful of these strategic shortcomings, we should bear in mind that the subregional and regional legal frameworks should be crafted in a manner that reduces any barriers and makes allowance for the ultimate development of a continental instrument that will foster the harmonization of our technological options and standards of service. In other words: think global and act local. Some of us will recall that when we met in May this year during our 36 th Administrative Council in Nairobi (Kenya), we held a massively attended Forum on postal regulation. For the very first time, regulators and operators faced each other and spoke from their hearts. At the end of these deliberations, the Administrative Council recommended the enactment of a regional directive that will reconcile the widelyaccepted, gradual and regulated liberalization with a view to achieving sustainable and high-quality universal postal service, among other things. During the event, participants, acknowledged the need to deepen integration at the continental level by laying down a concrete platform for cooperation between national regulatory authorities with the ultimate aim of harmonizing oversight and regulatory policies for the sector. We are currently working on it. It is against this background that I would like to urge all postal leaders here present to work together with your regulatory authorities and sub-regional postal organizations and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to come up initiatives that will germinate into a single policy for the continent. We have started the process with the sub-regional organizations in the West (WAPCO) and the South (CRASA). The ultimate aim is that the General Secretariat should submit a Draft African Postal Regulation Directive for PAPU Member States during the next Administrative Council meeting; the deliverable being to pass it into a continental directive through the competent authorities of the African Union, namely, Pan 6

7 African Parliament (PAP), which is holding a continental conference in Yaounde (Cameroon) next week on a similar topic. Ladies and Gentlemen, May I now draw your attention to which like postal regulation, is key in our programme of action, I mean e-commerce It is common knowledge that e-commerce is currently the growth point for the postal sector. As we speak, the UPU came up with a project dubbed 'Ecom@Africa' to assist postal organizations on the African continent to develop their e-commerce sectors. The project aims at bringing together African governments around a common goal, following an inclusive strategy that helps small- and medium-sized enterprises, as well as citizens to gain access to intra- African and international markets through online commerce based on the postal network. However, for this project to be successful there is need for it to be customized to the local situation wherever it is being implemented, to avoid the one-size-fits-all approach. As members of the African postal fraternity, this project is very dear to our hearts. It became a key priority in 2015 during the 35 th Administrative Council meeting held in Khartoum (Sudan) and thereafter, a global priority during the UPU Congress in Istanbul (Turkey). I will prefer to allow the most competent authority whom we are honoured to have in our presence to shed more light on the project. The Director General of the UPU will unpack this initiative during our deliberations. Ladies and Gentlemen Another key moment of our meeting will be the day of tomorrow, 15 th August 2015, dedicated to the preparation of Africa's participation in the upcoming meeting of 7

8 the UPU's Global Forum for Postal Directors-General in Moscow from 17 th to 19 th September 2017, in Moscow (Russia). If my memory serves be well, I think that this is the first time that the CEOs are meeting to discuss and agree on a common approach before going to join their counterparts in a global meeting. I therefore invite all participants here to participate actively in the deliberations on the future of Africa s postal sector and its position on the global arena. The African postal sector should seize this opportunity of the Cairo meeting to now speak with one voice. United, we are stronger. Together, let s build a brighter future! Finally, I wish to express my profound gratitude to Egypt once again for this exemplary initiative and particularly for bringing together CEOs of postal operators and the Director General of the UPU to discuss issues that will move Africa s postal sector to the next level. I wish you fruitful deliberations and sincerely thank for your attention. May God bless you! God bless the African Postal Fraternity! God bless Africa! Asante Sana! Merci! Obrigado! Choukrâne djazilane! 8