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The document below, the "Strategic Plan for the UPU from 2005 to 2008", contains the overall goals that the U.S. Government would plan to have the UPU achieve during the period covered by the decisions of the 2004 Bucharest UPU Congress. This plan reflects the views of the U.S. Government stakeholder agencies in the UPU, as well as those of major private-sector stakeholders.

The goals in this plan, which shall be adjusted periodically, are shown in order of priority.

1. Major Strategic and Policy Issues

a) Economic Issues

Terminal Dues after Bucharest

• Support the fundamental principle of market-oriented, cost-based, country-specific terminal dues under which increases in rates are phased in over time or introduced with a long warning period, to avoid sudden and steep postage rate increases for mailers.
• Make tangible progress by 2008 in achieving inclusion of all UPU member countries in the target terminal dues system by December 31, 2013.
• Support UPU work to develop a standard cost-accounting system which administrations can use to calculate the costs incurred in delivering inbound international mail in a manner that respects domestic ratemaking practices and cost attribution methodologies.
• Work to achieve closer alignment of terminal dues rates with the principles of cost recovery.
• Study the validity of linking the principle of purchasing power parity to terminal dues payments and develop methodologies as appropriate.
• Promote further development and expansion of pay-for-performance arrangements (Quality Link) for Letter Post.

Quality of Service Fund

• Simplify the goals and methods of the Quality of Service Fund (QSF) and if necessary revise QSF basic documents to this effect.
• Review the structure and work methods of the QSF Board with a view towards improving its efficiency and effectiveness.
• Reduce administrative costs and improve effectiveness of projects.
• Develop standard criteria for evaluating the usefulness and effectiveness of QSF projects to establish a link between the projects and the service performance of beneficiary countries.
• Develop standard process for business planning and project management to provide countries with a common framework.
• Seek to have the views of Consultative Committee members and other QSF stakeholders taken into account by the QSF Board.

Country Classification

• Seek to develop criteria specific to the level of postal development and particular conditions of national postal markets to classify countries for the purposes of setting terminal dues payments in the transitional system and establishing eligibility for QSF payments.
• Work to eliminate the classification of countries for the purpose of setting the levels of terminal dues and other inter-administration payments not later than December 31, 2013.

WTO Alignment

• Monitor the UPU commitment and actions to move UPU postal administrations to the target terminal dues system by the end of December 2013 as well as the annual number of administrations that join the target system.
• Monitor WTO decisions that impact the UPU terminal dues system.
• Support continued educational efforts by the UPU on WTO issues, and also ensure compatibility between UPU and WTO rules.

b) Performance Measurement

• Support the internal publication of report cards by the UPU on the performance of administrations (and delivery agents, where appropriate) in delivering inbound international Letter Post items and Parcels to the addressee.
• Develop methodologies for measuring the performance of airlines in handling and transporting dispatches of mail.
• Seek all available means and technologies, and develop alternate methodologies if necessary, for the measurement of service performance. Alternate methodologies could include measurements using PREDES, PRECON, RESDES and RESCON data, ID tag data, eMaria data, on-time flight arrival statistics and other information.
• Continue efforts to extend and expand pay-for-performance systems to Letter Post and Parcels by developing specific plans for inclusion of postal administrations in pay-for-performance arrangements.
• Improve relationships between postal administrations and airlines through the IATA-UPU Contact Committee in support of airline performance measurement.

c) Cementing Consultative Committee Role

• Undertake to maximize private-sector participation in the Consultative Committee.
• Support Committee?s efforts to develop and carry out its 2005-2008 workplan successfully.
• Foster further integration of private-sector organizations into the work of UPU bodies.

2. Regulatory and Administrative Issues

a) ETOEs

• Support UPU policies that permit postal administrations to refuse to accept items dispatched by ETOEs under UPU documentation.
• Preserve distinction between ETOE practices, which are purely commercial, and execution of universal service by national postal administrations operating in their home territories.
• Support UPU policies that consider dispatches by ETOEs as purely commercial traffic and subject to the same rules as are applied to private operators.
• Encourage like-minded governments to support efforts to apply commercial customs procedures to items carried by ETOEs.
• Support policies in the UPU to limit eligibility to use UPU documentation on outbound traffic dispatched by ETOEs.

b) Customs Clearance

• Promote continued cooperation and dialogue between the UPU and WCO.
• Propose and promote specific actions by the CA and POC aimed at bringing customs clearance procedures for postal items more in line with commercial customs procedures used by private-sector delivery firms.

c) Bucharest World Postal Strategy

• Develop mechanisms by which the annual workplans of the CA, POC, Consultative Committee and IB could be expressed, to the extent possible, by a set of quantifiable goals whose achievement would be measured and reviewed annually. The results of the measurements shall be used to gauge the achievements of these UPU bodies between 2005 and 2008.
• Analyze efforts made by other U.N. specialized agencies to include quantifiable goals and measurements in their basic strategy documents for possible application to the Bucharest World Postal Strategy process.

d) Further UPU Reform

• Seek more streamlined organization structures and effective work methods for the CA and POC.
• Seek a greater degree of flexibility in the UPU?s personnel practices, for example, to allow engagement of more IB staff members on short-term contracts.

3. Postal and Technical Issues

a) Postal Security

• Continue focus on preventing injuries to people from dangerous goods; preventing mail theft and loss; preventing revenue loss; and preserving customer confidence in the mail.
• Strengthen efforts to combat the use of the mails for terrorism.
• Further develop Postal Security Action Group programs such as airport security reviews and regional training for postal security specialists.
• Work to improve the completeness and reliability of eMaria data while contributing to the UPU effort to merge all postal networks into a single combined network of systems (eMaria, GXS, POST*Net and UPU*Clearing).

b) Structure and Work of the UPU?s Cooperatives

EMS Cooperative

• Ensure that tracking capability shall be a requirement for EMS Cooperative membership by January 2006.
• Improve overall on-time delivery of all Cooperative members from 82% to a specified percentage by 2008.
• Increase the number of administrations that apply the EMS Pay-for-performance Plan from 8 to a specified number by 2008.
• Refine measurements of PREDES and RESDES messages and set goals for transmission of these messages.

Telematics Cooperative

• Have the Telematics Cooperative adopt revised Statutes, including direct election of Management Board members.
• Develop plan to achieve deployment of tracking systems by postal administrations worldwide and track progress against plan.
• Support efforts to design a single combined network of systems that would unite the current postal networks used for UPU operational and accounting processes: eMaria, GXS, POST*Net and UPU*Clearing.
• Set specific goals for the number of administrations that use IPS Light and monitor progress.
• Set specific goals for installations of the IPS application and monitor progress.
• Monitor the quality of POST*Net, by third-party audits if necessary.

UPU*Clearing

• Set specific goals to attract postal administrations to join UPU*Clearing.
• Set long-term goals for UPU*Clearing that would include pay-for-performance calculations through the clearinghouse for member administrations.
• Develop plan to attract private-sector suppliers (e.g. airlines and delivery agents) to join UPU*Clearing.
• Develop proposals to ensure that fees, dues or charges paid to the IB can be collected through UPU*Clearing.

c) Standards Board

• Seek to develop standards that would contribute to effective measurement of the quality of service of international mail.
• Contribute to the comprehensive review of UPU operational and accounting procedures proposed by the United States to the Bucharest Congress.
• Monitor the Standard Board?s own structure, membership and working methods, and revise where necessary or desirable.
• Consider the views of the UPU membership, including regulators, postal administrations and private-sector members of the Consultative Committee, in setting out the work of the Standards Board.

d) Parcels

• Support proposals requiring application of appropriate barcodes on all international parcels and transmission of tracking event data on parcels.
• Seek funding for measurement of quality of service of delivery of parcels based on appropriate barcodes and event data.
• Adapt methodology for measurement of parcel service performance.
• Develop and publish report cards on parcel service performance.
• Support efforts to develop systems for calculating the costs of handling and delivery of parcels for worldwide applicability.

e) Postal Development and Technical Cooperation

• Develop criteria for measuring the effectiveness of postal reform, improving customer satisfaction and improving the quality of and access to postal services that may be applied to the experiences of individual countries. In doing so, periodically monitor, analyze, and compare the quality of postal services of individual countries in relation to their level of postal reform.
• Develop criteria for measuring the amount of funding for postal reform projects that the Postal Development Action Group has secured for UPU member countries through its activities.
• Consider how the approach to technical cooperation developed by the EMS Cooperative, under which postal administrations must achieve a certain minimum level of quality, could be applied more generally throughout the UPU for the purposes of technical cooperation.
• Develop a plan to integrate (or implement) best practices, derived from technical cooperation, where applicable.

f) Direct Mail and the Direct Mail Advisory Board

• Urge the Direct Mail Advisory Board to review its current activities and future work and consider conducting project assessments.
• Work with private sector to enlist active leadership participation by other postal administrations.

g) Post*Code and Address Management

• Support continuation of the Post*Code group including the International Address Standardization working group.
• Support the promotion of Post*Code products and services that increase the quality and exchanges of International mail.