Africa declares a new standard for its communications profession

A coalition of Africa’s leading professional PR and communication associations, institutes and bodies has announced The Africa Declaration on the Professionalisation of Public Relations and Responsible Communication.  

The declaration is a founding charter: a collective commitment to shared standards, ethical accountability, and the professionalisation of public relations and communication practice across Africa. 

Central to the process is the African Responsible Communicator Standard (ARCS) – a continental recognition framework that converts the declaration’s commitments into a visible, verifiable credential. 

Through ARCS, any practitioner who holds active membership of a signatory professional body, meets shared continuing professional development requirements, and commits to the shared code of ethics, carries that recognition across every signatory market.  

This credential is portable, renewable and employer-facing – designed to make professional standing visible to clients, governments and the organisations that hire communication professionals. 

The African Public Relations Association (APRA), as the continent’s umbrella body for public relations associations, will play a central coordinating role in the initiative by driving continental engagement, supporting the expansion of the signatory base across regions and representing the collective African voice in global professional forums. 

Cannot have disparate standards of communication  

Comments Dr Omoniyi Ibietan, Secretary General of APRA: “A continent that commits to a developmental programme such as the African Union’s Agenda 2063 cannot operate disparate standards of communication principles and practices.  

“Therefore, this pronouncement is not just auspicious, it is reasoned, it is seminal and indeed an accountable demonstration of commitment to iterating the centrality of responsible communication to human progress, by those who have lived and understand the spectrum and intricacies of the African story.” 

Adds Bradly Howland, Co-Lead of the Africa Declaration and Immediate-Past President of Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA): “Africa’s communications landscape is one of the most consequential in the world. It shapes public discourse, influences democratic participation, and tells the continent’s story to itself and to the world.  

Yet for too long, that landscape has had no shared standard for who practises in it or what responsibility they carry. The Africa Declaration changes that – not by importing a framework from elsewhere, but by building one from within, rooted in African experience, shaped by African institutions.” 

Among those who have signed up to the declaration are PR and communications institutes in Nigeria, Zambia, Southern Africa, Kenya and Lesotho. There is also support from international industry bodies such as the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management, the International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO) and the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA). 

The declaration will be formally signed and launched at the World PR Forum in Abuja, Nigeria, in November 2026.