UNICEF boosts healthcare in Nigeria with free SMS-based technology

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has launched U-report, a free SMS-based communication technology to develop the Nigerian community.

According to UNICEF Nigeria, U-report is used in engaging Nigerians towards establishing and enforcing accountability in governance, health, education, the environment and other areas of community endeavour through social mobilisation.

With this new initiative, eye witnesses can report cases of anomalies directly to UNICEF via text messages and the issue(s) will be treated accordingly.

This new UNICEF SMS-based initiative was introduced to give Nigerians an opportunity to hold government officials responsible in the area of actualising the millennium development goals and other areas of community endeavour through social mobilisation.

Caroline Barabwoha, a UNICEF consultant to Nigeria, explained that the initiative is highly promising in Nigeria due to the large population of the country. Barabwoha said that the motive behind this program was for community engagement and participation in issues that affect them for development to take place.

“Right now, the trend is very promising for Nigeria, judging from the experience of other countries in Africa, many of which have taken over one year to get up to 3,000 volunteer U-reporters.

“In Nigeria, in just a matter of five weeks, over 5,000 volunteers have been engaged. Currently there are over 9,000 U-reporters in the country. The goal is to have up to five million reporters in the country by the end of the year,” she said.