The announcement marks the formal beginning of the Africa Declaration initiative.
In a profession where anyone can claim to be a practitioner, where ethical failures carry no professional consequence, and where a continent experiencing rapid economic and democratic transformation has lacked any shared standard for responsible communication practice, Africa's professional bodies have united to change that.
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, built from African experience and designed to endure.
The Declaration does not attempt to import a framework from elsewhere. It is built from the ground up - shaped by the realities of Africa's communications environment, the diversity of its regulatory landscapes, and the hard-won experience of professional bodies that have navigated the journey from voluntary association to statutory recognition.
It establishes eight founding principles, six areas of institutional commitment, and a 10-point collective action plan with accountable leads across the signatory community.
The initiative is co-led by Bradly Howland, immediate-past president of Prisa, and Irene Lungu Chipili, chairman of the Africa Regional Council at Global Alliance.
"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," says Howland.
"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. Africa is not professionalising its communications industry to catch up with the world. It is doing it to lead," he explains.
Central to the Declaration 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.
The credential is portable, renewable, and employer-facing - designed to make professional standing visible to clients, governments, and the organisations that hire communicators.
ARCS operates on a federated model: enforcement authority remains with national professional bodies operating under their own governance frameworks.
In countries where statutory recognition has been achieved, ARCS recognition is contingent on compliance with the legal requirements of those jurisdictions.
The Declaration is designed to complement and amplify existing national frameworks - not to compete with or supersede the authority of statutory bodies such as the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) or the Zambia Institute of Public Relations and Communication (ZIPRC).
As the continent's umbrella body for public relations associations, African Public Relations Association (APRA) will play a central coordinating role in the initiative - driving continental engagement, supporting the expansion of the signatory base across regions, and representing the collective African voice in global professional forums.
“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 reiterating the centrality of responsible communication to human progress, by those who have lived and understand the spectrum and intricacies of the African story," says Dr Omoniyi Ibietan, secretary general, APRA.
The Declaration will be formally signed and launched at the World PR Forum (WPRF) in Abuja, Nigeria, in November 2026 - providing the runway for all signatories to endorse the document, for working groups to be constituted, and for the initiative to be properly activated before it goes live across the continent.
The founding signatory group will continue to grow as engagement across the continent progresses.
Professional bodies, associations, and institutions across Africa wishing to engage with the Declaration ahead of the formal launch are encouraged to make contact through any founding signatory body or through the APRA.
