In the era of the 24-hour news cycle, the question facing every communications professional is no longer whether a crisis will come, but how ready they will be when it does.
That was the driving message of the latest PR Fundi session, where Uganda’s public relations community gathered to interrogate the craft of crisis communications with urgency and candour.
The session featured two keynote speakers whose contrasting professional worlds diplomacy and the uniformed services converged on the same hard truth: in a crisis, the communicator who hesitates loses.
Tina Wamala, Head of Communications at the British High Commission in Uganda, built her address around a single principle: speed is credibility. “If you don’t grip it and transparently address it, someone else will shape the narrative for you,” she warned. “You will appear evasive and that leads directly to mistrust.”
Wamala urged communicators to resist the instinct to wait for complete information before speaking. “Tell people what you know, what you don’t know, and when you hope to update them,” she said “Don’t wait to be sure. Communicate fast and effectively.” She also stressed tone: lead with a human voice, not a policy document. Acknowledge uncertainty.
Be consistent across every channel. “One inconsistent message and the story becomes the inconsistency, not the crisis.”
Her most operational recommendation was on preparation. Every communications team, she argued, should maintain a live stakeholder map allies, decision-makers, and partners identified with their contacts and engagement protocols built long before a crisis arrives. “That relationship is built in the ordinary days, not the crisis ones.”
Frank Baine, Senior Commissioner of Prisons, brought a different but equally compelling perspective. Drawing on experience managing communications within one of Uganda’s most scrutinised public institutions, Baine told attendees that effective crisis response is not improvised it is formulaic. “There is a formula for handling a crisis,” he said. “When you have that formula, you are not starting from zero when things go wrong. You already know the steps.”
For Baine, the formula begins with acknowledgement recognising the crisis exists and that your institution has a role in addressing it. It then demands internal alignment: one agreed message, one voice, delivered consistently. “You cannot have different people saying different things. Agree as a team on the message and stay consistent,” he said. His view was that institutions which drill their crisis protocols in calm periods are the ones that hold together when pressure arrives.
Together, the two speakers made a case that transcended sector. Whether you are managing a diplomatic mission or a public institution, the fundamentals do not change: acknowledge, align, communicate fast, stay human, and never let silence become your spokesperson.
PR Fundi continues to serve as a vital space for Uganda’s communications professionals to sharpen their craft. The room left not only with frameworks, but with a sharper understanding of what is truly at stake when a crisis breaks and what it costs to be unprepared.
