TANZANIA AWARDED S42 ADDRESSING STANDARD RECOGNITION CERTIFICATE
TANZANIA AWARDED S42 ADDRESSING STANDARD RECOGNITION CERTIFICATE
1. INTRODUCTION
On 1st November 2013, the United Republic of Tanzania was awarded by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) a recognition certificate for her contribution to the UPU S42 Addressing Standard Template Development. The recognition ceremony was organised during the conference of the Postal Operations Council at the capital city of Switzerland which is the seat of the Universal Postal Union which is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) in matters related to postal communications. Besides Tanzania (United Rep.), Belarus, Belgium, China (People’s Rep.) and Czech Republic qualified for the award of recognition certificate.
Quality addressing and postcode systems are essential to the socio-economic infrastructure and development of a country. They also form the cornerstone of quality postal services, facilitating business transactions and hence the country’s economic growth. Address networks are crucial to businesses’ ability to operate. Address networks are infrastructures that facilitate the process of doing business and, consequently, economic development.
2. S42 INTERNATIONAL ADDRESSING STANDARD
The UPU standard provides a kind of dictionary of the possible components of postal addresses, together with examples and constraints on their use in a given country. The S42 international addressing standard consists of:
• a set of postal address components used in worldwide addresses;
• languages for expressing address templates, i.e. formal descriptions of address formatting rules;
• provides country-specific address templates. A country defining its S42 template provides precise information about its address elements and formatting rules;
• creates a library of templates that can be easily incorporated into computer systems for managing addresses.
During the process of launching of template development, Tanzania contacted the S42 expert group at the Universal Postal Union by submitting a sample data set, which consisted address examples representing all the address formats recommended by the United Republic.
Each address in the sample needed to be mapped into S42 elements reflecting their use in the country. For example, mapping the address lines in different delivery methods and explaining whether is a rural or urban address with indication of thoroughfare type.
On the basis of a mapped sample, the S42 expert group creates a template which is fed into a computer program known as a tester. This program reassembles each address from elements and checks the result against the submitted data. The test of the template is positive when all addresses from the sample have been assembled correctly.
At the end of the process, the Tanzania delegation to the Addressing Group was involved in checking the following:
• that all addresses in the sample data set are properly formatted;
• the sample contains a sufficiently complete representation of formats recommended by the United Republic; and
• the addresses are correctly mapped to S42 elements.
Following the procedure above, the Tanzania S42 standard was approved in April 2013 and a ceremony was planned for 1st November 2013..
3. RECOGNITION CEREMONY
The Certificate of Recognition is granted when a country has achieved the development
and maintenance of an agreed or accepted address template.The S42 recognition ceremony is normally designed to raise postal administrations’ awareness on the value of S42 and encourage them to join the S42 certification program.
The picture of the S42 Addressing Standard Recognition Certificate
4. TANZANIA S42 TEMPLATE
The approved Tanzania S42 template comprising of 6 address types:-
I. URBAN – Street type (Use of Ward Postcode)
II. URBAN – Informal Settlements (Use of Ward Postcode)
III. RURAL with the village setup – Village + Hamlet or Kitongoji (Use of Ward Postcode)
IV. POSTAL OFFICE DELIVERY (P.O. Box, Private bag, Postrestante) – (Use of Post office Postcodeallocated to the respective post offices)
V. Combination of P. O. Box and Street type (Use of the Ward Postcode)
VI. Combination of Street type with Big mailers assigned Postcodes (Use of Government or Big mailers Postcode)
5. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE S42 ADDRESSING STANDARD RECOGNITION CERTIFICATE
• Efforts by Tanzania to implement the new addressing and postcode system have produced positive results in the international arena.
• Standards are important prerequisites for effective postal operations and for interconnecting the global network. Tanzania is expected to boost its global connectivity.
• The standards improve the exchange of postal-related information between posts, and promote the compatibility of UPU and international postal initiatives.
• Tanzania has become one of the elite group of countries to attain S42 Addressing standard recognition.
• The address template represents the internally used and publicly promoted address format. The postal sector is expected to capitalize on this strength to promote its domestic business.
• It is a good example to the world for the country that has offered the UPU a Special Ambassador to drive the Addressing the World – an Address for Everyone initiative.
Issued By;
Director General
06th November 2013