Over 229,000 people in the North-East Nigeria region are now active citizens airing their opinion on issues affecting their communities and lives. This was achieved on UNICEF’s U-report 24x7, a social messaging tool and data collection system that seeks to improve citizen engagement, inform stakeholders, and foster positive change.
In the face of the protracted conflict that has distorted the peace in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, and displaced several citizens, IDP camps and host communities in the North East are faced with numerous challenges. These cuts across sectors like: Health, Protection, Nutrition, Food Security and Livelihoods, Education, Shelter/NFI as well as Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH). Strategic to the above UNICEF’s interventions, U-report 24X7 has become a vital tool to measure the impact of the conflict and provide life-saving information exchange between affected communities and humanitarian responses.
On this second-year anniversary, it is candid to appreciate the effort of partners and U-reporters who have remained active on the civic engagement tool. Through their collaboration, we have attended and successfully closed 253 cases reported on the platform. There are currently 86 active cases queued for appropriate stakeholder follow-up. In two years, over 6.7 million messages have been shared by U-reporters while we have provided 23,000 useful responses for personal and community level actions. Our collective commitment has yielded many results with documented evidence of learnings, case reports and actions.
Our partners have been impressed in different ways, expressing their thoughts on how useful the platform has been. We would like to share some of their opinions below.
“Truly I understand how to protect myself from Lassa fever. Yes, I learnt and received explanations on how to protect myself, children and including those I live with. Now we have killed all the rats in the house with poison.” (Female, Borno)
Highlighting the importance of the platform for supporting government’s listening role and intervening in cases of injustice and service gaps, a humanitarian worker stated-
“We used …U-Report to get feedback for programming. Even on measles...we didn’t really know how extensive it was until we did that polling, and it became obvious that it was widespread. That supported the case for us to go ahead and conduct a measles campaign....” (UNICEF Staff)
Our partners also believe that the platform is simple and easy to use and have also recommended it to others who are yet to join the platform.
“...Based on what they told us during that event I mentioned earlier, we were enlightened very well, and I found this platform interesting. I will lay a complaint by sending an SMS without being charged a dime and get feedback promptly. This made me decide to use the platform, it is something that everyone needs because it is simple to use.” (Male, Borno)
As the year closes, we look forward to more engagements that will strengthen the voices of citizens, improving dialogue and advocacy for accountability from the government.
Signing up on U-report 24x7 is simple with this basic step- Send SHIGA to 24453. Together our voices matter.
