PR must tell the African story

Awori was the guest of honour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of FAPRA, which took place in Kenya last week, attended by government officials, politicians and academics from all over Africa. Our very own Kate Bapela, one of the five Vice Presidents of FAPRA, led the South African delegation.

Awori added that public relations should be used to capture noble objectives such as the programs that are done through the NEPAD initiative, which seeks to promote and develop Africa.

The promotion of human development, socio economic and partnerships with governments and Nepad was the agenda that was put forward by the Kenyan Minister for Planning and National Development, Prof. Peter Anyang' Nyong'o. He said, "The African spirit cannot be awoken if we don't adopt a sentiment of: 'We can do it!' We need to urge and co-operate with the Nepad initiatives in order for the Nepad Secretariat to communicate the re-engineering of Africa and only good effective public relations can do that."

Kenya's Minister for Information and Communication, Raphael Tuju and Dr Alfred Matua, Public Communications Secretary - the first ever spokesperson for the government of Kenya - issued the assurance that his government support the growth of public relations in Africa and that FAPRA should partner with governments in the development of Africa.

Credibility, media transparency, independence, honesty and accurate reporting of the PR industry was echoed by Charles van den Straten Waillet, the President of the International Public Relations Associations, in the final presentation of the second day.