The Spring Plenary (Session 1) of the Postal Operations Council (#POC) and the Council of Administrations (#CA) laid the foundations for implementing the Abidjan World Postal Strategy, the Union’s first #digitalstrategy.

The POC is responsible for all #operational, #commercial, #technical, economic and technical #cooperation issues of interest to all the member countries of the #UPU and their designated operators (#DOs), re-establishing its working groups and #committee to deepen the #interconnectivitybetween DOs, collecting #postalitems; #freight and #transport operators facilitating #logistics; and #operatorsdelivering at #destination. #Digitalization based on mandatory electronic advanced data (#EAD) harmonises the interconnectivity of #postaloperations and #transportmodes, and secures #product and #transportsafety. 
This has been reflected in the approval of:

· Amendments to the instructions on the CN 22, CN 23 and CP 72 #postal customs #declaration forms, and the size of the CN 22 form;
· Amendments to Article 20-001 of the UPU Convention #Regulations to remove the 300 SDR threshold from CN 22 forms by 1 June 2023;
· Revised terms of reference and nomination of new postal members of the IATA–UPU Contact Committee;
· The UPU–Rail Forum’s revised terms of #reference as well as its six new #postal members.

The CA, which supervises all #activities of the UPU between #Congresses with respect to #governmental policies on postal issues, and taking into account #internationalregulatory #developments, has re-established its standing #groups dedicated to:

· The #governance and #management of the UPU, including the UPU #budget;
· Postal #policy and #regulation, including issues such as access to postal #products and #services;
· Strategy, postal economics and #markets, including current #trends such as B2B2C;
· #Development #cooperation and technical #assistance, including #financial inclusion, Post4Health, Postal Prosperity Zone, EU4Digital;

The CA also noted the work conducted by the UPU Task Force on the opening up of the UPU to wider #postalsectorplayers, and adopted the Rules of Procedure, new #applicationprocess and internal organisation of the UPU Consultative Committee (UPU #CC) to welcome wider postal sector entities as members from 1 July 2022.