 Aled, mae wedi bod i erôl yn ei gael arla Bongyff Beckordt.乃 Felly yn rhoi David Daj, a mae gennym yr ysgol yng Nghymru at Y Unifredig Poster. Rydyn ni'n ymgolwyd digonol. Rydyn ni'n ymddangos i'r unrhyw ymddangos o'r byd, yn ymddangos i'r Unio Unedig Poster i'r Ynryd Bysha A Hwsen, ac yn Ysgol Paskal Cleaver. who have persided over this union as Director-General and Deputy Director-General for the past 9 years. They, along with our Council of Administration Chair from Côte d'Ivoire, IISAC number Weil, will welcome the UPU's newly elected director general, Mr Masahiko Motoki, and deputy director general, Mr Marion Osvald. To begin the official ceremony a da i gael o'r cymdeithasol oeddwn i gwaith yn gyfalu i'r cymdeithasol y mae'n sgwrth o'r ddweud o'r llei. Yr ysgol yw'r enghraifft. Maes i'n mewn. Mae'n gweithio'r sefydliadau. Mae'n gweithio'n sefydliadau. Mae'n gweithio'r sefydliadau. Mae'n gweithio'r sefydliadau. that I am here before you today to chair this handover ceremony with the outgoing director general, the new elected director general and the deputy director general, outgoing director general and the new, yma yng Nghymru, ydych chi'n bwysig i amlianfodd ganweithio ar y dyfodol yn Arbyd. Felly, rydyn ni'n dweud i gyda'r ffath o'r hyn sydd arall i'r hynny, oherwydd i fynd i gyda'r ffath o'r fath ac yn ymgrifwng yn gyfnodd, oeddwn i'r holl yma yng nghymru, i'w chyfnodd, y Prifyddau Ymrwyngor a'r UK. I felt the warmth with which you expressed your congratulations, which reflects the friendship between our countries for over a decade now. I would like to first address the new director general of the UPU. My dear Matahiko Mitoki, I would like to congratulate you for your brilliant election to lead our organisation in August of last year in Abidjan. The first election held in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, elected you with the maximum number of votes cast. Mr Matahiko Mitoki, this is a testament to your long career in public service and in the postal sector. You know very well the UPU. You chaired the CA from 2012 onwards and chaired the second congress, the Postal Financial Services of the POC. You led the first revision of the Universal Postal Convention, which allowed for the post to send lithium batteries and other equipment containing batteries. All the member states have witnessed your commitment to continue reforming the postal industry and to rise to the challenges that it faces with the inclusion and participation of all member countries. You intend to lead a committed team in order to solve the union's problems and to provide support to each country according to their needs. I encourage you and I hope I can count on everyone's commitment to enable our organisation to rise to the highest levels within the United Nations. You, Bishar Hussein, are handing over your position now in this nice atmosphere to our new director general. I would like to congratulate you for all the work you have done for our organisation these past years. You have initiated many reforms and have promoted gender equality within the council but also among states to give equal chances to developing countries which didn't have as much of a say in decision making before you. So I am convinced that even after you have left that you will remain committed to the protagonists within our sector, contributing your expertise to the new postal sector. Now, turning to Marianne Oswald, our new deputy director general. I know that you support public infrastructures because you know that they can be managed more efficiently. You have important responsibilities in the operations strategies of the postal operators sector. I have demonstrated your expertise these past 24 years. You will contribute to the best of yourselves under the leadership of Mr Metoki. I would also like to say a couple of words about Pascal Tivan. Mr Deputy Director General, even if you didn't succeed, it's worse not to have tried. You fought a noble battle and I am convinced that you will succeed at something even greater. I wish you all the best and I know I can count on all of you as the chair of the council of administration to enable our organisation to flourish. I would like to wish you all the best and thank you for your attention. Thank you very much Mr Namber Yow. Could I please invite the former UPU Deputy Director General, Mr Pascal Cleaver, to the lectern to make his official handover remarks? Chair of the council of administration, dear friend, chair of the operations council and dear friend, likewise, Mr Metoki, Mr Oswald, former Deputy Director General and former Director General Bishara Hussein, dear friends, dear hosts, I wish you all a happy new year. I would like to warmly welcome the interpreters who are giving me a chance to speak in another official language of the UPU in French, which is a language I've always defended as it represents diversity and represents our very rich cultural diversity. I am very glad that we have managed to come to an agreement and sign an agreement with the Association of French-speaking Countries in 2016 in Madagascar. I am delighted to be able to make this statement because now things will continue with other protagonists and it is time to hand over my position here at the UPU. After 16 years at the service of the UPU in the UN in my long career within the postal sector, it has been a pleasure to work for this honourable public service, which is an intermediary in our new modern modes of consumption. As one of the first and youngest Deputy Director General of this organisation, it has been a wonderful stage in my life. With the new directive on post, the treaties of the UPU, I was very fulfilled as a lawyer to have helped in the financial reform of the UPU to comply with Ipsas standards and to have implemented other plans and strategies. I have used my competencies to serve the UPU and to bring about reforms, which as the President of the Regional Bank, and in my other capacities, I will continue to always fight against the status quo. As a Director of Strategy and Deputy Director General, I emphasise the importance of developing a longer term vision, which is the only way we can guarantee our sustainability. Nowadays, nothing is standard or normal anymore. One must adapt even if we don't have a compass that we need to make decisions. Sometimes at the UPU we discuss matters for long hours in working groups, but the postal players are in space. Amazon and other logistics giants know how to exploit the slow decision maker of the players that look on what is going on astounded. We now must act. Let's hope that the UPU will know which direction to follow in order to show its relevance and its resondette in the coming years. I really hope this from the bottom of my heart. This handover ceremony is a very special moment that is also an opportunity for us to think about different positions, one of which I wasn't elected for the Director General, but also the powers of the Deputy Director General who has the ability to convince the Director General of certain things, because it's only by persuasion that we can manage to change things. That role now falls upon my new Deputy Director General and friend, Mr Osvald. The UPU, the powers, and we know this, is in the hands of the Director General. It is now Mr Mitoki who will have that responsibility. Once again, my congratulations. This is not an easy task. You need to find the right balance between confrontation and consent. I have no doubt about your abilities to overcome the difficulties and move through the various traps that you will face. In this Olympic year you will have to deal with many different issues including the premises including four different diplomatic missions and other which shows the international multilateral vocation of this beautiful city which has been. We need coordinated well-thought decisions. I would like to thank the Canton and the City of Burn in passing. These past nine years the main risks identified have been mitigated. One of the main ones in relation to the organisation's financing, its sustainability and its economic model as the Director of Finance and Strategy from 2005 to 2013, the UPU took a very courageous decision. It changed its accounting standards and has taken on responsibilities led by Edward Ayon whom I'd like to welcome this morning. He decided to put an end to a philosophy that passed on the responsibility to future leaders to deal with the problems of the part. This required a lot of determination. Our convictions were aligned and they still are in this regard. It's with our Director-General Mr Hussain that we dealt with the excess liabilities and other expenses that quickly increased. We showed a clear will to stick to zero nominal growth. Various sources of financing were also considered in the past couple of years. We have managed to acquire 50 million additional in revenue and we had at heart the economic well-being of the UPU. We were aware of the fact that we needed to manage our economic situation here at the UPU. We did so with the Reform of the Pensions Fund decisions that we took unanimously. Now I would like to encourage those who are taking over to continue this work. It's a matter of economic justice. Now with regard to economic and financial sustainability it seems like the risks have been somewhat mitigated but we are not totally protected. The financial well-being of the UPU will require greater financing from users as our products and services contribute to added value of their business. So we need a better distribution of the costs which are imbalanced at present and it took a pandemic to realise certain things. One thing is unchanged. Despite the circumstances and the financial difficulties we face that have forced us to be very conservative in these matters, our policies have enabled us to change the balance for the developing countries who are now playing a greater role in the debate. I'm thinking about the children in Mali and Niger in Burkina Faso. I'm proud at 53 years of age to have managed to achieve certain things that I always wanted to do for our brothers that are part of the United Nations systems but are at a disadvantage. And that was part of my commitments and was carried out in practice. Our roadmap was clear once we had found the risk because we had to find the way to do things in practice. We have had tools like precise indicators and a team of leaders, committed leaders and it is thanks to this that we have managed. So I would like to thank our directors that led the process, showed their talent and their resilient spirit despite the circumstances and despite the unexpected events. We have managed to digitise our systems, move to paperless systems. We have managed to hold all our events, even the Congress, despite the pandemic. Most decisions have been taken. We have even managed to elect our new leaders and thank you to Ivory Coast for this. Since March 2020 our staff has been working from home. I would like to thank them especially for those listening to us. And I believe that the new leaders will have to think about a new policy with regard to telework. It is the staff I would like us to also pay tribute to these men and women who have made things possible. We were able to count on their knowledge, on their expertise, which was essential for us to carry out everything we have up until now. Our staff is very diverse geographically but also in terms of gender. Our staff is our life. It is our daily realities. And I would also like us to spare a thought for those who left us during their service. They will always be in our minds. Throughout these times of crisis, of changes that force us to organise for Congresses to extraordinary ones. Throughout all these difficulties, our ties, our bonds have been strengthened. We found solutions and that reflects our sector. Postmasters are very special people in this world as if a family, the world of the posts, is a world of solidarity in which people try to find the best solutions. And as I am talking about family, I would like to now turn to my family, my wife and my son, my soul motivation. I would like to tell you that this is not the end of the road. The battle goes on. There are more tasks to take on. Mr Motoki, Mr Oswald, to all those who are looking and watching us through their screens, I wish you a very good year, a very interesting one in good health and full of achievements. I would like to thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Mr Cleaver. I would now invite incoming Deputy Director-General, Mr Marion Oswald, to make his remarks. But before you do, perhaps we could just have a photograph together with the outgoing DDG as well, please, preferably by the flag. Thank you. Mr Masahiko Metoki, Director-General of the UPU, Metoki San, Sher Isaac Nambayaw, Chair of the Council of Administration, Mr Hussein, Mr Cleaver. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to be here today as I begin my work as the Deputy Director-General of the Universal Postal Union. My warm congratulations to Mr Hussein for his leadership of this organisation and also to Mr Cleavaz, my predecessor. Thank you, Ambassador Hussein. Thank you, Pascal. I must admit that as I stand here today before you, I feel not only deep respect but also huge responsibility. When presenting my vision as a candidate of Republic of Slovenia, I always emphasised not just accountability but also transparency and business ethics. I believe in the importance of this principle as the drivers of any successful sector. Today, my first step in achieving this goal is to take the UPU out in front of you all. I solemnly swear to exercise in all loyalty, discretion and conscience the function entrusted to me as an international civil servant of the Universal Postal Union. To discard this function and to regulate my conduct with the interest of the union only in view and not to seek or accept instructions in regard to the performance of my duties from any government or other authority external to the union. I also solemnly swear and declare and promise to respect the obligations incumbent upon me as set out in the staff regulations and rules. The role of postal operators and postal services in society is changing. The developed world was fortunate enough to move through evolution and liberalisation from traditional letter and parcel delivery companies to logistics and ICT companies. Less developed countries have not been that lucky. They have moved from few or almost no letters in the past to the widespread use of smartphones today. However, what all countries have in common is that the status of the postal services and the post as an institution in the society largely depends on the owner, mostly the state. During my terms of office, I therefore encourage responsible owners to define the role of the post in their environment and to support its development. The Universal Postal Union will thus guide, coordinate and help members to enhance the quality and importance of postal services. Our task is to connect our customers, private or business. Let's not forget that the infrastructure we have is the best in the world. Your Excellencies. Postal services are part of the communication market where letter post items seems to be increasingly losing their relevance. E-mails dominate modern communication and may soon turn letters into an insignificant communication tool, a boutique romantic accessory. And while the new technologies substitute the traditional mail, they generate new parcel volumes through e-commerce forcing the designated national operators to transform their traditional business models into sustainable commercial businesses that not only use their own resources economically but also strive to reduce any negative environmental or social impacts in their countries and around the world. Solidarity has been an important connecting factor in our network in the past. What is the essence of solidarity? That those who have more give to those who have less. Very simple. Without it, those who are deprived cannot progress and the gap between the developed and the underdeveloped world only increases. So it should be our mission to find a model of solidarity that will reduce the differences among us or between us. Every intergovernmental organization sooner or later needs to face the fact that the world around is changing faster than it wants it to. This is especially true for universal postal union. We are all aware of this and we know that we will need to change and adapt if you want to survive and succeed in a digital society that is not only coming but is already here. Ladies and gentlemen, I first entered this building in 1997 exactly 25 years ago. I can still remember how impressed I was by it. It looked so majestic. I felt deep respect and this feeling has not changed to this very day. Therefore, to the all UPU staff, chairs of the POC, CA, the committees and task forces, the restricted unions and above all the member countries, I promise you that I will work with all of you in the very best interests of this union. Thank you to my wife, Tadea, my former boss Tomash and thank you all. Happy new year. Thank you. Thank you very much, Deputy Director-General Oswald. Could I please call our outgoing Director-General, Mr Hussein, to the stage to give his remarks. But after speaking, please could I ask you to remain standing, sir, because we're going to pass the key from one Director-General to another. Sir, the floor is yours. Bismillahir rahmanir raheem. Your Excellency, the Director-General of the Universal Postal Union, Mr Mitoki, the Deputy Director-General of the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union, Mr Marian, your Excellencies, Ambassadors and Heads of Missions present here with us today. Your Excellency, the Chairman of the CA, Brother Isaac, the Chairman of the Postal Operations Council, Mr Fosfield, distinguished, invited dignitaries, International Bureau staff, ladies and gentlemen, salam aleikum and a very good morning to all of you. I would like to express my profound thanks to all of you for honoring us with your presence to witness this hand-in-over ceremony today. The hand-over is a long-established tradition of UPU that signifies the transition and formal change of God at the apex of this union's leadership. Let me once again congratulate my friend Mr Masahiko and Mr Marian for their elections to the leadership of the UPU. I also wish to call upon member countries and international bureau staff to support the two leaders to enable them to continue with their momentous task of transforming this organization to address the demands and the dynamics of the ever-changing postal market. Pascal and I have done our part and it's now up to the new team to bring new ideas, new energy and enthusiasm to continue the journey. To my successor, as you will soon realize, UPU from outside is quite different from what it is from inside. The good news is that you have very able and competent and professional staff who will make all things easy for you. Please support them to continue delivering for you. One thing you'll also realize from inside is the fact that the union needs to keep on reforming in many areas to cope with the dynamics of the global business. This is not always quite obvious from outside. To member countries and international bureau secretariat, please help these two gentlemen to achieve their aspirations to deliver on the promise they underlined in their respective campaign manifestos. Excellencies, today is not a day for me to give long speeches about our achievements, our trials and tribulations, our challenges and our successes. It's all written in the history books of the UPU. It is engraved in stone and a number of them have already been touched by my colleague Mr Pascal. But suffice to say that this journey was not easy when we took office in 2012, 2013, sorry, and we have come through nine years of remarkable challenges and experience which we will always carry home. This very hall has seen many debates. We have seen great ideas come out of this hall. And I'm very proud to say that myself and my leadership and my colleague, we were able to deliver 100% on all the KPIs that were set for us by the member countries during our two minutes. And that was not a mean achievement. The Excellencies, during that period from 2013 up to now, we've held two successful congresses. In 2016 we had a congress in Istanbul under very difficult circumstances. The country was going through a political challenge at the time. But we stood up together and delivered a remarkable congress in our recent memory. And then, of course, we had 2018 extraordinary congress, the second extraordinary congress in Istanbul. But before long this union experienced a very dramatic challenge when one of our member countries, United States of America, threatened to quit the union for a problem that had existed for generations, dealing with remerations and the compensation package. We were forced to go to another extraordinary congress in 2019 in Geneva. And again, when the union went almost to the brink of collapse, the International Bureau of Secretariat got together and delivered one of the most remarkable, what you call, consensus in my diplomatic career. That is the victory option in Geneva in 2019. That held the union together and that kept the United States in the country. But not only that, but gave us 40 million Swiss francs, which was just talked about by our colleague here in the process, to solve our pension fund problems and also to really change the system of compensation that we have today. So, in essence, I cannot count the successes that we have done here together. But one thing I want to say is the Congress of 2020 was postponed because of the pandemic that we all came through. And this is when we were tested and tried. This union could not hold a congress in 2020 as an initial plan. Not for any fault of us at the National Bureau of Secretariat, neither the host country. But we got together and found a solution for that. And in 2021, Côte d'Ivoire hosted for us one of the most remarkable congress again in UPS history. In the worst pandemic situation, the first hybrid congress was held and the first in the UN common system. And for that, I want to really express my profound thanks to the government and the people of the public of Côte d'Ivoire. And also to you, Mr Chairman, I will ask you to convey our thanks and appreciation to His Excellency the President and to the government for that congress, which has now delivered our next leadership here. Your Excellency, of course, before I conclude my remarks, I want to acknowledge my country, Kenya. Your Excellency, the representative of the ambassador, please convey my warmest regards to our president and the people of Kenya, who have stood with me and gave me the wings to fly. You gave me the ability to be able to lead these organizations and to stand with me throughout the two months. And for that, I'm very grateful and please convey the same message to the people and the government of the Republic of Kenya. Of course, I have expressed my thanks to Côte d'Ivoire and Mr Isaac for organizing that excellent congress for us. I want to thank the International Bureau's Secretariat, my colleagues, each one individual as well as collectively. I'll always remember you with the fondness of memory. We have gone, we have been tried and tested by member countries. Four congresses in one cycle is not an easy exercise and the most difficult conditions. But every time we were vindicated, we stood together and we delivered on everything the member countries have asked us to do. That took time. I know many of you do not even go for your holidays. And for that, I want to say that you are forever grateful for the achievements that we have done together, the support you gave us. I want to thank my colleague, Mr Pascal. For his remarkable courage and leadership. Mr Pascal, we came and we delivered. We knew it was never easy, but we delivered on all the promises we made and achieved the objectives we set for ourselves. You will always have my respect and I'll always remember the times we spent together. Planning, executing, drawing our strategies, trying to solve the problems for this union. Mr Pascal has many talents, I can tell you. The finest fondue I've ever eaten was prepared by this guy. We used to go to his chalet or house up in the mountains and whenever we had difficult things to think about here. And after a delicious fondue, I can tell you all the great ideas start flowing. And for that, Mr Pascal, I've seen your many talents. You are a great guy and I will always remember your loyalty, your friendship and your support and your courage, determination. I can call all the objectives. Thank you very much and thank you very much again. Excellencies, there's one man I have a lot of respect for. And that is not a man from the International Bureau of Secretariat. He's our external auditor. From the Swiss Federal Audit. Mr Didi Monaw. I can see he's sitting there. Mr Didi Monaw, let me tell you guys, is from the Swiss Federal Office that really looks at this union as external audit. In the last nine years, we conducted 112 internal and external audit exercises. We facilitated. And the Swiss Federal Office is the organization that comes and checks and sees what we have done. And with the advice, they have guided us. They have supported us. They have told us where we went wrong. And corrected us where we have done a great job. What I can remember is we inherited thousands of open audit queries when we came in first. And we kept closing them down. But the nature of audits is that you close 100, but you open another 40 every time they come to visit. But what touched me about this greater audit exercise is that after all those 112 exercise, I can tell you, we had zero qualifications on any major weaknesses that has been reported. And during the last session of the S0 session, Mr Monaw was here in the hall and he presented his final, the most impartial, the most professional advice and observation he has made. And he had very, very good things to say about the performance of the union and our mandate, me and Didigi. But also he had very kind words to say about me and Mr Pascal. Mr Monaw, I was not in the hall that day. But I have the opportunity to say thank you very much for your great support you have given us and for your objective assessment of this organization. And I am forever grateful today. I'm very glad that we were able to live up to the expectations of the member countries and their trust and the respect they gave us. We were able to withhold the trust and deliver with dignity and respect. Thank you very much Mr Monaw for your support. Please give him a big round of applause. First of all, I want to thank my family. My wife is sitting here, Asha. This lady we met when I just finished University of Nairobi in 1984, shortly after, just when I started my career in the Postal Service. She walked with me through the entire career of my life from the lowest level of management of the Kenya Post. Today when I am sitting on the slopes of the Alps mountain at the pinnacle of my career, she is here in this town, in this country. She doesn't know anybody in this town, she has no friends here, but she has been faithfully sitting here and she bore all the pressures that I was carrying on the body. And when I think that I was at my lowest, she will always give me the courage and support that I needed. And she told me that I am not a quitter, I should be able to stand up. She gave me that support for which I will not be able to quantify and I will not be able to pay back, let me say. So to Asha and to my family members who stood with me, I said thank you very much and thank you very much to you all. Excellencies, I'll always remember my departed parents, my father and mother. These are two great people and every time I talk about them tears well in my eyes. They taught me good manners, they raised me and of course they trained me to be honest, upright and moulded me into the man I am. They are not here with me today, but they are forever in my prayers and in my thoughts and I wish they were seated here today. They will be very proud of me, but since they are not there, they will always be in my heart and I will remember them. I come from one of the most remotest place on this planet, Northern Kenya, remote village, where there are no schools, no things we take for granted here. They made sure that I got the necessary education, not textbook education, the things I needed for life to be the person I am. They told me to speak the truth and told me never, never to accept any situation where I will be able to suspend my better judgement because of someone else's opinion. They told me to respect people, but they also taught me how to be respected. I hope I have lived up to the expectations, but we are all fallable, we are human beings. If I have failed them in any way, I will sit for forgiveness from my friends. Whatever I did here in the last nine years, we have tough times, we have hard times, I have pushed member countries very, very hard sometimes to change their forms. But I said it has never been personal, it was professional and I was always backed by the professional and technical and legal advice of the confident men and women who are here with me. So, but change is never easy, we have had our challenges, but again, we had only one common objective. We had the best interest of this union at heart and I hope that every one of you will consider our shortfalls if there were any in that context and nothing personal from me. As I leave the stage today, I want to forgive everybody and I expect or I request forgiveness from everyone for anything that we may have said or done in the course of our duty that may not have pleased you. With those few remarks, ladies and gentlemen, it has been a great honour to lead this union. And now that I'm stepping down, I want to wish my colleague Mr Mitrochi and Mr Marian the very best, please stay firm to the true ideals of the founding members of this union to keep this union and to keep the fire burning. Because there's no other organisation that serves this union better than the Universal Postal Union. In times of war, in times of peace, in times of tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, pandemics, name them. We are the first respondents that are there on the ground that goes to serve humanity. And that is the privilege that we have. So, to all the men and the women who risk their lives for the sake of humanity, the postmen and women, I salute them all and I say it is goodbye from me at this stage and I wish to see you in future in a different capacity. Thank you very much for your audience. Thank you very much, Mr Hussein. Director-General Mitrochi, could I please invite you to join Mr Hussein at the centre of the stage here in front of the flags to receive the key? Please could I kindly ask you to hold the key and to look directly at the camera? So perhaps just to pass the key over and maybe you could both hold the key. Before we do that, let me just say one word here. Your Excellency, this is the symbolic key of power and authority over this building. This was handed to me by my predecessor, Mr Edward Dayan, and it is a long tradition that we hand it down to the next leadership. So today I have the privilege and the honour to be able to pass the instruments of power to my colleague and friend, dear friend Mr Mitrochi. So Mr Mitrochi, please. Mr Marian Oswald, Deputy Director-General of the UPU. Excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues, a very happy new year to you all. I am proud to receive this key and to become the 17th Director-General of the Universal Postal Union. The key I'm holding is a symbol of these organisations which history and its enduring ability over nearly 150 years to prosper and adapt. It is also an honour to receive the key from Ambassador Sain for over the last nine years has read this organisation with distinction. My warm gratitude to Mr Priver. Together you both have worked tirelessly on behalf of this organisation and in doing so, you have shown vision, leadership and commitment. On behalf of everyone present today, I thank you both for your outstanding achievements. I would also like to thank the ambassadors, our permanent representatives of member countries present today. Thank you for your trust you have placed in me. I shall never forget my duty to you all. Around me also thank the government of the 6th Confederation, the UPU's host country, the local authorities and the mayor of Beren for the daily support and assistance provided to the UPU. Throughout my term I would do everything possible to strengthen the ties that bind us closely together. In addition, my thanks to the government of Japan for their faith in me and their support. Excellencies and distinguished guests, I am taking my UPU oath in front of you and before the wider UPU community who are watching this ceremony in the UPU TV. I do so with great pride and because I wish to make an important public commitment to the duties and responsibilities of my office. Therefore, I solemnly swear to exercise in all loyalty, discretion and conscience the functions entrusted to me as the international civil servant of the Universal Postal Union, to discharge these functions and regulate my conduct with interest to the union only in view and not to seek or accept instructions in regard to the performance of my duties from any government or other authorities external to the union. I also solemnly declare and promise to respect the obligation in Cuban upon me as set out the staff regulations and rules. Now, I have taken my oath. I want to reaffirm my commitment to using the Director General's Office to oversee the successful implementation of the Abijam Postal Strategy from 2022 to 2025. The strategy arose from an extensive consultation process and our combined desire to create a roadmap for the organization until 2025. It set out a vision of the post as an essential engine for sustainable development and invites government to do everything possible to reduce the gaps in postal development around the world. Together with the need to harmonize postal regulatory frameworks, these activities from the crucial centre of our work over the next business cycle. As Director General, I pledge that I will work in all sincerity with member countries to make this strategy successful. I also work closely with my Deputy Director General, Marian Oswald. He comes to his new position with the wealth of experience in postal business. We will also strongly benefit from the support of the UPU directors and the UPU staff who are behind our organizations. We will also work in partnership with the Chair of the Council of Administrations, represented by Mr Isaac Gambayaw and the Postal Operations Council, represented by Mr Jampo Hossebill. I also form strong working relations with the committees, including the consultative committee as well as the task forces, that will all play such an important role in achieving the Abidjan strategy. As able, the respective unions and an integral part of the UPU committee, and I will continue to work closely with their readerships to build partnerships and further develop cooperation. Without the input and support of the respective unions and the work undertaken in the regions, we have no hope to achieve the Abidjan strategy. I will also work with our many international partners, including across the programs and organizations of the United Nations. It is essential that the world achieves the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, and I believe that the UPU and the international postal sector have significant roles to play in their achievements. Excellencies and distinguished guests, although symbol, this key, has tremendous significance. If we work in an effective and efficient manner, we can collectively unlock success for the entire postal industry. This is why I took this position, and this is why, together with you, I believe we can use the platform of success created by our successive predecessors to create right future for the UPU and the postal sector. Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude again for your participation in the ceremony, despite the very difficult current situation caused by COVID-19. I also apologise to you for the sudden cancellation of the reception today. Thank you very much for your kind attention. Thank you. Thank you, Director-General Motoki, and many congratulations to both yourself and Deputy Director-General Oswald. Our thanks also to Mr Hussein and to Mr Cleaver. Before we close our ceremony this morning, we have a very special interlude from some musicians who will play a selection of classical music. Please. I'd like to invite everybody on the podium to please step outside where we'll be having a number of photo opportunities. Could I also ask the Chair of the POC to go as well, as well as the Directors of the Universal Postal Union? Thank you very much. I'd just like to say, just before I finish on a personal note, I'd like to thank you very much for being willing to come. The weather was not very good today, so thank you for struggling through it. Certainly when I was up very early, it was snowing. I'd also like to say how nice it is to stand in front of a microphone and have an audience in front of me. It's been two years, I think. So a big thank you for coming today. Thank you very much for being such a good audience and I wish you a safe journey back home. Thank you very much.