CHAPTER

14
The Nature and Status of Public Relations Practice in Africa
Chris Skinner Gary Mersham

OVERVIEW
Research on the continental practice of public relations in Africa is for the most part sparse and fragmented, a large proportion of it carried out on specic aspects of practice in specic countries. There are unfortunately few studies that try to treat Africa as an entity and from a communication perspective. However, the recent report The Public Relations Landscape in Africa (2006), carried out by the UK-based consultancy Gyroscope, is one that claims a measure of success in this challenging task. As the report points out, the continent we refer to as Africa is a patchwork of 53 countries, some sharing common borders, with others separated by thousands of kilometres. They range from large, prosperous and cosmopolitan Egypt, to landlocked, impoverished and troubled Chad; and from the scattered Atlantic island state of Sao Tome and Principe to the thriving economies of South Africa, Nigeria and more recently the Democratic Republic of Congo. The deliberations around NEPADthe New Partnership for African Development, a continent-wide initiative for the social, economic and political development of Africa and the African Renaissance, actively promoted by South Africas President Thabo Mbeki, in fact highlight the challenges that will have to be addressed before we can speak of an authentically integrated and united Africa First, there is a daunting lack of physical infrastructure. Road networks radiate from capital cities to the major provincial hubs and the pattern remains constant: the nearer the capital, the better the road. As the roads spread beyond the provinces toward
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FIG. 14.1 Countries in the Gyroscope Africa Communications Index. (see www.gyroscopeconsultancy.com).

the border with the next country, they degrade, often to little more than tracks. Trade and other contact is characteristically either within national borders or extra-continental, rather than intertrade between countries which share borders. There are relatively few safe, secure and comfortable international road or rail links. Air links are available between major centres, but this raises the problem of cost. The vast majority of people cannot aord to y, and hence are unable to travel beyond their own country. This in turn contributes to the second barrier: a profound, mutual ignorance of dierent countries and cultures. Compared to many other parts of the world, it is very dicult for someone from any given African country to acquire a real knowledge and understanding of just one or two of the countries which border their own. The third barrierlanguagecompounds this further (Hooyberg and Mersham, 2000). South Africa alone has 11 recognised ocial languages; Nigeria has more than 390 distinct dialects; few if any of these are widely spoken in Nigerias immediate neighbours, such as Chad or Benin, and none of them are spoken in (for example) Egypt or Ethiopia. Even where either English or French is generally understood, linguistic confusion and isolation are common. The fourth barrier is dierential economics and huge discrepancies in the GDPs of Africas states. Poverty is grinding and widespread. Nations often have small, wealthy elites

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along with millions of dirt-poor peasants and workers. Elites tend to run major institutions, with a very small middle class providing few checks and balances. As the Gyroscope report (2006:4) puts it, South Africa can aord a global advertising campaign to build its national brand, and attract investment and tourism; Ghana, which celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2007, cannot. Indeed, so challenging is the social, political, geographical and economic diversity of Africa that for many communications professionals in the commercial sector Africa remains out of bounds. For many organisationsNGOs, charities, healthcare managers, educatorsoperating in Africa is not a choice but a responsibility or a mission. They work there and manage communications there because of the continents problems, not despite them. Yet for commercial organizations, Africa is a potentially vast and untapped market, the worlds next great consumer market which will require a massive growth in eective marketing communications. Africa is a continent of 800 million people, with an average GDP per capita of $684. This compares with that of China (1.3 billion people, and $780 per capita in GDP) and India (1.1 billion, $440 per capita in GDP). Certainly, within the average GDP per capita in Africa there is an extreme range of personal income levels, from utter poverty to immense wealthbut this range is not signicantly more extreme than that of Chinas or Indias inhabitants. Whether organisations are exploiting Africas commercial opportunitieseither as a market or as a source of raw materials and resourcesthe need to act as good global corporate citizens is drawn into sharp relief. Clearly there is a responsibility to the continents people, their development and their environment. Ultimately, then, there are few major organisations that do not need to know more about Africa and how to manage communications there (Gyroscope 2007:5). Indeed the nal Commission Report for Africa (2006) paints a pragmatic and positive story about the continent. Regional economic integration is indeed proceeding apace with major advances in the streamlining of investment and competition policy frameworks, customs regimes and trade policies, and in many other areas. A new initiative on budget reform and public expenditure management has been launched in South Africa with the enthusiastic participation of treasury ocials from across the continent (CABRI). More democratic states and fewer civil conicts are also just two signs of progress on the political front. The long-awaited European UnionAfrican Summit in Lisbon in December 2007 heard that when leaders of the two continents last met in Cairo seven years previously, there were no fewer than 14 conicts ranging on African soil, making up 50 percent of violent deaths in the world. These chilling statistics had more than halved by 2007. Africa has also achieved unprecedented macroeconomic stability, which is contributing to better economic growth rates than have been achieved in decades. According to the IMF, the continents GDP was less than 1 percent between 1995 and 2000. In the rst ve years of this century it rose to 4.3 percent. Since then it has increased to 5.5 percent and is estimated to have risen to 6.8 percent in 2007. However, it must be said that deep and grinding poverty remains a daily reality throughout the continent, notwithstanding the focus on macroeconomic policywhich is necessary but remains insucient. In these circumstances the Commission concludes, Africa is ready and willing to embrace a new kind of partnership. NEPADs primary objectives are to:

eradicate poverty; place African countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development;