Patrick Orr

Biographical Information
"In a career spanning more than four decades, Patrick Orr has spent much of his time promoting African issues while providing services to African governments, UN organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), higher education institutions and the corporate sector. He helped to establish Raitt Orr and Associates in 1982 as the London hub for two public relations organisations in Africa – Church Orr and Associates of Nairobi and Lloyd Orr Communications of Johannesburg.

"While living in Kenya in the 1970s, he was an information adviser to the government of the Sudan, in the period of peace that followed the ending of civil war and handled the media arrangements for the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) held in Khartoum in 1978. He served as the only non-Kenyan on the board of the Kenya Tourist Development Corporation (KTDC) from 1975 to 1980.

"In London in the 1980s, he helped to organise the launch of the Brundtland Commission Report, described as the “development document of the decade”. He established an initiative for the UN Water Decade with former Prime Minister Edward Heath, and promoted the campaign to eradicate guinea worm disease in Africa, in collaboration with the Carter Center, headed by former US President Jimmy Carter.

"In recent years, he was closely involved in the political transition that followed the December 2002 elections in Kenya. He served on consultative missions of the UN-affiliated University for Peace (UPEACE) to Sudan and Kenya, and launched the UPEACE Africa Programme. He organised a major pan-African conference on the future of Africa’s newsmedia in Nairobi in 2006. He helped to draw attention to the plight of the City of Bethlehem in a programme called ‘Open Bethlehem’ – focusing on the suffocation of the city by the imposition of the separation wall.

"Current activities include promoting the interests of Japan’s largest grant-making private foundation, The Nippon Foundation, which includes work – for 15 years – with its subsidiary, the Sasakawa Africa Association; promoting the activities of St George’s University, Grenada, as a Caribbean centre of international excellence and education hub for the Commonwealth; strengthening African parliaments through the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa (AWEPA), and raising the profile of The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the world’s largest bilateral development agency, following the merger with the overseas economic co-operation section of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) in October 2008. His company also promotes the Caine Prize for African Writing, Africa’s foremost literary award.

"Patrick Orr is the newly elected Chairman of the Business Council for Africa UK (BCA UK), formerly the British African Business Association (BABA). BCA UK was launched in July to represent the interests of the 500 members of the Eastern Africa Association and the Business Council for Africa West and Southern through the European Business Council for Africa and the Mediterranean in Brussels (EBCAM).  He is also a member of the board of the Eastern African Association (EAA).

"He is Deputy-Chairman of the London-based Kenya Society and a founder member of the society, the African Tourism and Travel Association (ATTA) and the Public Relations Society of Kenya (PRSK). He serves on the board of the Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation (WINDREF). "


 * Advisory board, David Astor Journalism Awards Trust

Related Sourcewatch

 * Business Council for Africa