The first meeting of the ICCO Africa Group (IAG) took place on Monday 13th May 2019, ahead of the APRA Conference in Kigali, Rwanda.

The group comprised of representatives from national PR associations, institutes and societies across Africa with the purpose of discussing opportunities for collaboration, sharing of information, ideas and resources. The next aim to discuss how to share and promote the best creative, successful African PR campaigns, case studies and work to the rest of the world.

The group agreed the following actions and initiatives:

Professional Development

• ICCO to work with IAG representatives in order to develop face to face training courses in hubs across the continent, starting with Lagos. This training will be developed from
• ICCO courses in consultation with local representatives for relatable examples. Local associations and societies will manage the marketing of courses to secure maximum attendee levels and help reduce costs.
• We will start with “Crisis Communications in a Digital World” and
  “Award winner Masterclass sessions”
• ICCO to offer a discount to APRA members for online training and videos.

Research and Resources

• ICCO to promote existing online resources to APRA members and members of other PR associations and institutes.
• Research conducted in Africa to be promoted to the rest of the world through ICCO Library.
• Research to be conducted jointly between PRCA, ICCO and African PR organisations in order to get larger data samples and produce more accurate results.

Raising the profile of African PR in the Rest of the World

• ICCO to review costs for entering Global Awards will offer discounts for local award winners. The goal is making sure individual nations of Africa gain more recognition, distinct from the continent as a whole.
• ICCO, with PRCA, APRA and IAG members, will create and promote courses and guides on “How to win global awards” using videos and guidance from SABRE Africa winners and Cannes Lions winners.
• ICCO will offer special discount to APRA members to attend the ICCO Global Summit in Lisbon and procure speakers on topics beyond the analysis of the African Market.
  Raising profile of PR to leaders in Africa
• ICCO will look to support and amplify the coverage of existing efforts by APRA to raise awareness of PR at events like the African CEO Forum and other non-PR specific events attended by politicians and leaders.
• ICCO will amplify coverage and message of APRA relationship with African Union as a model of practical influencing.

Standards and Ethics

• ICCO will target existing ICCO members from networked agencies like Edelman to drive the adoption of best practice standards across the group and affiliates, including use of self-assessment and business improvement tools like CMS. With long-term aim of these practices being adopted across markets locally.
• The IAG members will engage their communities, agencies and consultants to take part on “#POWERofETHICS” in September. An online social media campaign to promote case studies of ethical PR and PRing ethics through blogs, guidance pieces and events e.g. interview with the award-winning Anti Child Abuse campaign from Ogilvy Ghana.
• The ICCO Africa Group has agreed participants from Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda as well as associations APRA, PRISA (Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa) and PRCA MENA (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt) with more to come and all nations of Africa welcome. We plan to continue communication to achieve the above goals and meet again in May next year in Accra, Ghana ahead of the APRA 2020 conference.

Going forward this collaborative initiative will be run by Bridget Von Holdt, ICCO Africa President and Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, APRA President.

To find out more about the ICCO Africa Group, please contact Rob Morbin, ICCO General Manager, rob.morbin@iccopr.com