Overview of PR in Africa

The following overview is based on the material from the book mentioned in our previous posting (The Global Public Relations Handbook: Theory, Research, and Practice). I focused on chapter 14, titled as "The Nature and Status of Public Relations Practice in Africa" and written by Chris Skinner and Gary Mersham.

Skinner and Mersham begin their overview stating that research on the practice of PR in Africa is for the most part sparse and fragmented, and mostly carried out on specific aspects in specific countries. They claim that the best report available was compiled in 2006 by UK-based consultancy Gyroscope called "The Public Relations Landscape in Africa" and it also stresses that Africa consists of 53 separate countries that differ from each other significantly.

The authors have listed four challenges that need to be addressed before one can speak about integrated and united Africa:
1. Lack of physical infrastructure
2. Profound and mutual ignorance of different countries and cultures
3. Language barriers (e.g., South Africa has 11 official languages, Nigeria 390 dialects, etc.)
4. Differential economics and discrepancies in the GDP's of Africa's states.

These social, political, geographical and economic diversities of Africa are formidable challenges to many communication professionals for whom the commercial sector in Africa remains out of bounds, although Africa is a potentially vast and untapped market for commercial organizations.

There are media channels that cover most or all of Africa (BBC, Voice of America, Channel Africa, Africa Online). Unfortunately these channels have limited value for PR managers, as in trying to be broadly "African", they lose much of the localism, and they are limited to particular audience (English-speaking, relatively literate).

From the point of view of communications infrastructure, Skinner and Mersham have pointed out that although the number of cell subscribers and internet access points is increasing, there are huge variations throughout Africa. The policies and regulations also need more attention due to the recent changes in this field.

For conducting local PR in African countries, locally trained public relations practitioners are needed because of the complexities of languages, cultures and media structures. Levels of education vary widely. The authors have found variations in professional or vocational education in PR and communications management. In many cases some public relations focused components are offered as a part of mass communication and journalism programmes. Many countries do not have degree courses in communication management but there is a growing trend towards their introduction.

As with many other things mentioned above, Skinner and Mesham say also that standards of professional practice and ethics in the African countries range from excellent to very poor. Ghana, Botswana, South Africa and Namibia are considered to be among the best, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia somewhere in the middle, and Angola, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe at the end of the list.

A professional association called the African Public Relations Association is a non-governmental, non-political and non-profit-making organization that fosters unity and interaction among PR practitioners in Africa. Information about the organization is available here. Although the organization has been more successful in its activities in recent years, the authors claim that majority of public relations professional associations established in Africa have low key operations and small membership.

In most African countries there are PR and corporate communications agencies but the sector itself is underdeveloped. The above mentioned Gyroscope report describes four types of agencies:
1. Local offices or affiliates of the global PR groups
2. Africa specialists with claimed or actual expertise across several countries
3. Local agencies that are genuine PR specialists
4. Local agencies that claim PR as part of a service they offer.

For those who are interested, I would like to recommend reading pages 280-285 that give an overview of the Africa Communication Index developed by Gyroscope consultancy. It is created to help communication managers to match their needs and objectives in Africa to what is actually possible.

The future for PR in Africa... Skinner and Mersham believe that PR will continue to develop throughout Africa. They suggest that one of the most powerful influences might be broadly encompassed as the African world-view --- the concept that encompasses the value community and the recognition of the value of all individuals. The philosophy of "Ubuntu" (the idea of being one's brother's keeper) runs deeply throughout African thought and action.