This morning, during the monthly Spark Forum I host, we found ourselves discussing what it means to be a profession.
It started where many of these conversations do — communication education, business acumen, whether we’re doing enough to prepare the next generation for strategic roles. Before long, it turned to professional standards, credentials and what it takes for a profession to be recognised.
At one point, I mentioned that some African countries have legislated aspects of communication practice. It wasn’t something anyone in the room had heard about. While I didn’t assume people would know the details, I was struck by how little attention these developments seem to receive internationally.
If you’d asked me five years ago where the most interesting thinking about the future of our profession was coming from, I probably would have said the United Kingdom. Perhaps Australia.
Today, I wouldn’t. I’d say Africa.
That isn’t a throwaway comment, nor is it based on one conference or one conversation. It’s something that’s been gradually reshaping my own thinking over the past few years.
It began while I was researching global certification and professional standards for the Global Communication Certification Council (GCCC).
I’ve always been a strong advocate for professional credentials. I don’t believe they magically make someone a better communication professional. What interests me is what they signal.
They tell employers, clients and colleagues that this is someone who has invested in their profession, demonstrated their knowledge against an independent standard, and committed to ethics and lifelong learning.
Every profession that enjoys public trust (medicine, law, engineering, accounting) has found a way to signal that competence, ethics and accountability aren’t optional.
So, I found myself asking, if communication wants to be recognised as a profession, what are we doing to demonstrate that we deserve to be recognised as one?
As I explored that question, I discovered that Zambia had already legislated the profession.
I remember reading the legislation twice because I thought I’d misunderstood it. Here was a country saying communication mattered enough to establish professional standards in law, requiring practitioners to register, with a framework for ethics, development and accountability.
So, I started paying closer attention.
Then I discovered Nigeria’s long-standing statutory model, the work underway in Kenya to establish a similar framework, and the professional infrastructure taking shape in Ghana.
The more I looked, the more I thought, why aren’t we talking about this?
Since then, I’ve spent time with communication professionals from across Africa, teaching, speaking, evaluating awards, facilitating discussions and, more importantly, listening.
Recently, at the IABC World Conference in Toronto, I met communication professionals from Nigeria and other African nations whose passion was impossible to miss. Later this year I’ll speak at IABC Africa’s regional conference in Cape Town, then travel to Abuja for the Global Alliance’s World Public Relations Forum.
Every conversation has reinforced the same impression. These aren’t conversations about making communication more visible, they’re about making it stronger. About capability, ethics, professional identity, and what the profession owes the communities it serves.
A little while ago I invited a group of communication professionals from across Africa to a focus group. I wanted to understand what they were seeing and what they believed the rest of the world might be missing.
During the discussion, one person said something that I’ve thought about many times since.
“When people think about Africa, they think about poverty. We need to change that story.”
Perhaps communication is one of those stories that needs rewriting. Too often, conversations about Africa begin with assumptions about what the continent lacks. My experience has been the opposite.
I’ve seen professionals asking difficult questions about ethics and accountability. I’ve seen an appetite to strengthen the profession rather than simply promote it, and a genuine willingness to challenge what good practice looks like.
That doesn’t mean every African country is the same. There are different legal systems, different professional bodies, and different stages of maturity. Here’s what that pattern looks like:
In Zambia, communication has been given statutory recognition through legislation regulating practice and linking education, qualifications and ongoing professional development.
Nigeria has long recognised public relations through legislation, with the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations acting as the statutory regulator, setting entry standards and maintaining a professional register.
Kenya is working towards its own legislative framework while strengthening national qualification standards.
Meanwhile, Ghana continues building professional accreditation and formal standards through its national institute.
None of these countries are claiming to have solved every challenge facing our profession. But they’re treating communication as a profession that deserves structure, standards and public confidence.
Are they seeing something the rest of us have missed?
One of the arguments I hear whenever professional standards are discussed is that communication is too broad, too diverse, too difficult to define. I’ve never found that particularly convincing.
And to be clear, this isn’t about the rest of us having no standards. The GCCC has built a global certification, and national bodies elsewhere have done serious work too. The difference is that ours are optional. A practitioner can ignore them completely and keep practising, keep getting hired, keep calling themselves a communication professional. In Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana, that choice is being taken off the table.
Engineering is diverse. So is law. So is medicine. Each has specialists and different ways of practising, yet nobody seriously argues that means standards are unnecessary. Standards don’t make everyone the same. They establish a baseline, telling employers, clients and the public that this person has demonstrated knowledge, competence and ethical responsibility.
Communication should expect no less of itself. And every country should be asking some difficult questions.
What does it mean to call yourself a communication professional? How do we distinguish capability from confidence?
Those questions matter because our profession keeps wrestling with the same frustrations. We want to be trusted, to have greater influence, to be involved earlier in decision-making, and to be seen as strategic rather than tactical. But influence doesn’t come from asking to be taken seriously. It comes from building a profession that deserves to be.
At the World Public Relations Forum in November, Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is the Forum’s Chief Host. Zambia’s President, Hakainde Hichilema, will deliver the presidential keynote.
Two sitting presidents have chosen to publicly associate themselves with a global gathering of communication professionals.
That signals communication is being recognised as a profession with national significance, connected to leadership, governance and trust, and taken seriously at the highest levels.
And it made me wonder. When was the last time we saw that level of recognition elsewhere?
I’d be delighted to see the Australian Prime Minister open a major communication conference, or the leaders of Canada, France or Germany do the same. Imagine what that would say about the value placed on our profession. Maybe it happens more often than I realise. I hope it does. But I suspect many of us would struggle to think of an example.
Which brings me back to where this article began. A room full of experienced communication professionals, genuinely surprised to hear what was happening in Africa. Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong places for examples of professional leadership.
Africa doesn’t have all the answers, no region does. But it’s where I see people asking ambitious questions about standards, capability and public trust, and doing something about them. They’re building professional infrastructure, strengthening qualifications, and refusing to accept that “anyone can do communication” is good enough.
I find that genuinely inspiring.
So, maybe the future of communication isn’t coming from where many of us have always assumed. Maybe it’s emerging from places prepared to invest in professionalism and build something stronger for the next generation.
If that’s true, then the rest of us have a choice.
We can continue having the same conversations we’ve had for decades about why communication isn’t taken seriously. Or we can pay closer attention to the parts of the world showing us what treating it as a profession actually looks like.
From where I’m standing, it’s a conversation worth having.
And one I’m looking forward to continuing in Cape Town, in Abuja and, I hope, with many more colleagues across Africa in the years ahead.
