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APO Group partners with the Catholic Church in Africa to provide comprehensive Public Relations support towards greater pastoral effectiveness

Partnership with APO Group will bring greater cohesion to the Church’s pastoral communications strategy, helping to deliver the core messages of the Holy Father and the Vatican (Holy See) to Africa’s 251 million Catholics

APO Group will help us achieve continuity in our messaging that will ensure we are able to reach all African Catholics and promote organic pastoral solidarity on our continent

VATICAN CITY, Vatican, May 26, 2022/APO Group/ --

APO Group (www.APO-opa.com), the leading Pan-African communications consultancy and press release distribution service, and the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) (www.SECAM.org), today announced a working partnership aimed at providing extensive Media and Public Relations support to the Catholic Church in Africa (Holy See) (www.Vatican.va).

By working with the SECAM, the institution that coordinates the Catholic Church hierarchy’s pastoral work in Africa, APO Group will bring greater cohesion to the Church’s communications strategy, helping to deliver core messages of the Holy Father and the Holy See to Africa’s 251 million Catholics who are spread far and wide across the African diaspora. It will also publicise and present news and information about the life of the Church in Africa to a global audience.

The project is being carried out in collaboration with the Vatican Dicastery for Communications in Rome and the Pan-African Episcopal Committee for Social Communications (CEPACS) to ensure the Church’s communications strategies and initiatives are disseminated across Africa and beyond. 

The partnership was formalized on Tuesday during a signing ceremony at the Vatican in Rome by His Eminence Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo, Archbishop of Ouagadougou and President of SECAM, Most Reverend Emmanuel Badejo, Bishop of Oyo (Nigeria), President of CEPACS and member of the Vatican Dicastery for Communications, Monseigneur Janvier Marie Gustave Yameogo, official of the Vatican Dicastery for Communications, and Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, Founder and Chairman of APO Group.

While Catholic populations are declining in many parts of the world, in Africa they are increasing fast.

The mission of SECAM is to preserve and foster communion, collaboration and joint action among the Catholic Episcopal Conferences of Africa and the Islands, ensuring that African Catholics are better connected to each other, to the Vatican and to the universal Church. 

The Pan-African Episcopal Committee for Social Communications (CEPACS) was established in 1971 in collaboration with the Pontifical Council for Social Communications to support the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) as an episcopal committee to coordinate pastoral communications in the mission of the Church in Africa.

APO Group is well qualified to provide communications support for SECAM and the Catholic Church in Africa.

With a large client base made up of multinational companies, institutions and African governments, APO Group helps organizations as diverse as the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), Coca-Cola and FIFA achieve communications goals across Africa.

For SECAM, APO Group will provide support across a broad range of communications services, including the distribution of press releases, training of communications staff, and the facilitation of meetings with media and other organizations intended to foster new relationships and raise the profile of the Catholic Church in Africa. 

For example, in February, APO Group coordinated a three-day official visit to Expo 2020 in Dubai for SECAM’s President, His Eminence Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo, who is the highest-ranking member of the Roman Catholic Church in Africa.

APO Group will also work to train communications professionals within all Africa’s regional episcopal conferences:

  • Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM)
  • Association of Episcopal Conferences of Central Africa (ACEAC)
  • Association of Episcopal Conferences of Central Africa Region (ACERAC)
  • Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa (RECOWA/CERAO)
  • Assembly of the Catholic Hierarchy of Egypt (AHCE)
  • Regional Episcopal Conference of North Africa (CERNA)
  • Association of Member Episcopal Conferences of Eastern Africa (AMECEA)
  • Inter-Regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa (IMBISA)
  • Episcopal Conferences of the Indian Ocean (CEDOI)

“Through APO Group’s communications experience and Public Relations expertise, we can make deeper connections with media and other prominent organizations,” said His Eminence Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo, Head of the Catholic Church in Africa and President of SECAM. “APO Group will help us achieve continuity in our messaging that will ensure we are able to reach all African Catholics and promote organic pastoral solidarity on our continent.”

“Our mission is to ensure that Catholics from all over Africa feel connected to the Holy Father, the universal Church and the Vatican in their day-to-day faith experience,” said Bishop Badejo, a member of the Vatican Dicastery for Communications and President of CEPACS. “Through APO Group’s training and communications expertise, our episcopal conferences and officials can better deliver our message to the very heart of Africa and the world.”

“This is an exciting and ambitious project that allows us to harness our truly Pan-African reach,” said Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard (www.Pompigne-Mognard.com), Founder and Chairman of APO Group. “I’m grateful to His Eminence Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo, Bishop Emmanuel Badejo, and the Catholic Church in Africa for the opportunity to work closely with the Episcopal Conferences in delivering informative, positive pastoral content to millions of Africans.”

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of APO Group.

Media contact:
Vatican@apo-opa.com   

About APO Group:
Founded in 2007, APO Group (www.APO-opa.com) is the leading pan-African communications consultancy and press release distribution service. We assist private and public organisations in sharpening their reputation and increasing their brand equity in target countries across Africa. Our role as a trusted partner is to leverage the power of media and build bespoke strategies that enable organisations to produce a real, measurable impact in Africa and beyond. The trust and recognition granted to APO Group by global and multinational companies, governments, and NGOs inspires us to continuously enhance our value proposition within Africa to better cater to our clients’ needs. Among our prestigious clients: Facebook, Dangote Group, Nestle, GE, NBA, Canon, Coca-Cola, DHL, Marriott Group, Ecobank, Siemens, Standard Chartered, Orange, Jack Ma Foundation, African Development Bank, World Health Organization, Islamic Development Bank, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Rotary International, Kaspersky, Greenpeace…

Headquarters: Lausanne, Switzerland | Offices in Senegal, Dubai and Hong Kong   

About the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM):
The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) (www.SECAM.org) was born from the will of the African bishops at the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), they wanted to establish a forum to speak with a single voice on issues relating to the Church in Africa and Madagascar. SECAM is thus the episcopal, continental structure of the Church Family of God in Africa which counts:

505 dioceses grouped in 38 national or inter-territorial episcopal conferences and counts nearly 250 million Catholic faithful.

SECAM was launched on July 31, 1969 during the visit of His Holiness Pope Paul VI to Kampala (Uganda). The headquarters / secretariat of SECAM is in Accra, Ghana, and a specific office is established in Nairobi, Kenya for the translation of the bible into African languages and its distribution in Africa and Madagascar. Furthermore SECAM is an observer to the African Union and is represented by the Cardinal Archbishop of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of SECAM (July 1969 - July 2019) a pastoral exhortation entitled Kampala Document was promulgated by the pastors of Africa to the People of God and men and women of good will.

After the celebration of this golden jubilee of SECAM, a new chapter opens for the Church Family of God in Africa. A "new Africa", more centred on God whose members become Salt of the earth and Light of the world (Mt 5, 13-14; KD N° 22, 133) to accompany the hopes and anxieties of the people and to direct them towards Jesus Christ the True Liberator of humanity.