The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has entered into a partnership with the Federal University of Kashere (FUK) in Gombe State, to counter fake news, hate speech and other negative narratives in the society.
Country Director of UNICEF, Mrs Christian Munduate, disclosed this after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the FUK Vice Chancellor, Professor Umaru Pate.
She said UNICEF signed the MoU with the FUK, in order to promote the study of communication for social and behavioural change.
Mrs Munduate stated that the partnership will provide an avenue where communication experts will be produced to create social balance and address the issues of negative narrative in the society.
The country director added that UNICEF chose FUK to pilot the project, considering the availability of resources and the enabling environment created by the management of the institution, to enable the project to become a reality.
The Vice Chancellor of FUK, Professor Umaru Pate said that communication for social and behavioural change is an area and a capacity that needs to be developed to produce experts that will champion the development of health for women and children.
“We are in the era of fake news and disinformation, we need to have specialists that can always be there for more development, specifically the health of women and children,” he stated.
