President John Dramani Mahama was today celebrated by the gathering of Public Relations Practitioners from across Africa are attending the 1st All Africa Public Relations Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They expressed pride in his achievement as the first public relations practitioner, who was actually a member of Ghana’s chapter of the African Public Relations Association, to ascend to the high office of a Head of State in Africa.

In a speech read on his behalf by Hon Mahama Ayariga, Minister for Information and Media Relations, President John Mahama called on Public Relations (PR) practitioners in Africa to rally to the project of positively re-inventing Africa’s image in the world.

The old narrative of Africa as the “hopeless continent” is giving way to a new narrative that is recognizing the emergence of Africa as the emerging global economic frontier but this narrative must be by Africans themselves. He underscored the importance of communication in enhancing Africa’s accelerated development and building politically stable democracies. Advances in communication technologies should be harnessed to strengthen Africa’s democratic institutions, promote greater participation of its people in development and the creation more stable societies.

There was a consensus by all participants that the APRA should work with the African Union to leverage the promotion of Africa’s image in the industrialized markets of both the West and Asia.