By Hajaratu Kalokoh
The United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the telecoms operator, Africell as part of efforts to strengthen the U-Reports in Sierra Leone.
U-Report is a UNICEF youth engagement platform created to help maximize participation of young people in national issues. U-Report is an SMS based platform through which young people send SMS to a dedicated short code to make their input into any development issue.
In Sierra Leone the launch of the initiative coincided with the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic. According to UNICEF, over 140, 000 young people register as U-Reporters in that period.
U- Report was also important in Sierra Leone during emergencies like the cholera outbreak and flooding in Freetown.
The MoU with Africell was designed to support the Ministry of Youth Affairs in a venture that will allow the inclusive development of a National Youth Policy in Sierra Leone. Through the platform, the ministry hopes they will be able to engage young people all over the country on the ongoing policy discourse regarding issues affecting them.
Minister of Youth Affairs, Mohamed Bangura said during the ceremony that they believe innovation is key in engaging the youths.
“As a government we believe that we can solve our problems through innovation. We can talk to government through innovation. We can talk to the world through innovation and U-Report is just one of the platforms of innovation that we are using for young people to communicate with government and all stakeholders,” Bangura said.
Africell said as part of their contribution, they will remove extra charges on SMS messages that will be addressed to the platform.
“It is estimated that the project will generate traffic of around 2 million SMS per month and in addition Africell will also be sending targeted SMS broadcast to drive the U Reports registration throughout the period of the campaign,” Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of the company, Joe Abbass Bangura, said.
The government of Sierra Leone started the review of the National Youth Policy in July this year. The 2015 population and housing census revealed that more than 75% of the country’s population are under the age of 35, which falls within the youth bracket.
Country Representative of UNICEF, Dr Hamid El Bashir Ibrahim said over the years the US agency has realized the importance of getting youths involved in policy processes.
“This is an opportunity for youth to use the U - Report to exchange views and address the issue of development; we need every youth to participate,” he said.
Dr Ibrahim also praised Africell for their continued support towards the initiative.
“We applaud Africell, for they have been with us on this journey since the beginning. And by signing this agreement today they again showed their commitment to Sierra Leone, that they will enable us to reach out to ever more voices in Sierra Leone,” the Unice chief added.
UNICEF and Africell announced that youths can join the platform by sending “JOIN” to 280.
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