UNICEF partners with higher institutions to promote innovative social and behavioral change.

By Hadiza Ado Jinta

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has give a signed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the American University of Nigeria (AUN) Yola, Adamawa State, on Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) with a view to strengthen its Communication for Development (C4D) strategy.

While Signing the MoU, the Chief of Field Operations, UNICEF Nigeria Mr Opiyo Nixon said the strategic collaboration with AUN was the first of its kind in Nigeria and it will bring new opportunities for continued capacity development in the field of Social and Behaviour Change.

Mr Opiyo Nixon stated that the essence of the MoU would stimulate interested students and teachers in Nigeria to uptake C4D/SBC as a pathway to drive positive change in their communities.

“This partnership with a prestigious citadel of learning like the AUN will also ensure that we sustainably preserve the field of C4D/SBC in Nigeria. It will also enable the field to empirically evolve and respond to modern issues and challenges facing our societies” – Mr Nixon said.

He explained that UNICEF would continue to partner with Higher Institutions- both public and private such as AUN, across the different zones of the country, where UNICEF has field operations, to promote innovative Social and Behaviour Change to foster a clear vision for bridging the C4D/SBC human capacity gap in Nigeria.

According to him, as the UN agency for children, UNICEF was always delighted to collaborate with stakeholders to include Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), the Academia, and a myriad of others to foster evidence-based initiatives that transform societies for children to thrive.

Mr Nixon said “Communication for development is central to understanding how and the context in which people make behavioural decisions. It is key to facilitating social change for finding new solutions to the challenges — such as out of school children, violence against children or child marriage, stunting, poor uptake of services, and others — that UNICEF works to address”.

The Chief of Field Operations, UNICEF Nigeria says over the past twenty years, UNICEF through C4D, as a participatory tool, has worked with individuals, households, communities, and governments, to understand how people make decisions about their lives, the context in which decisions are made, and how to catalyze social change.

He said recently, there has been a paradigm shift within the UN system, including UNICEF, to expand C4D beyond communication, and put a stronger focus on SBC, by grounding it more on science.

“The MoU we are signing with AUN today, aligns with this shift.
By virtue of our work in C4D, UNICEF has curated more than two decades of legacy, experience, and programming leadership in the field, in a post-graduate course in Communication for Social Change (MCSC), which has been adopted by several universities across the world” Mr Nixon said.

The Interim President of AUN, Professor Attahir Yusuf who described the AUN-UNICEF programme collaboration as apt as it aims to develop mechanisms and a body of knowledge to deal with changes for the benefit of society.

Professor Yusuf therefore commended UNICEF for partnering with American University of Nigeria, which runs wide-ranging development programmes that has direct impact on local communities.