The United Nations has raised an alarm that Nigeria may not attain most of the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs by the target date of 2030 if there is no stronger commitment to address a section of the National Demographic Health Survey Report 2019, which revealed that 50 percent of citizens especially women, do not have direct access to the mainstream media.
The UN through the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF said unless there are concerted efforts to ensure that people, irrespective of location have access to the media, no matter how limited, Nigeria may struggle to achieve any SDGs target by 2030,
The gathering of journalists, health, education and media experts brainstormed on the National Demographic Health Survey Report 2019 and how Nigeria can utilise available resources to address areas and sectors in dare need of improvement
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The NDHS, conducted for the sixth time since 1990, is an extensive research work supervised by the National Population Commission, NPC and supported by the United Nations and other development partners
The concern here is that the report says between 2008 and 2018, access to direct media, especially by women is only 50%, and that may affect the attainment of critical targets in the SDGs.
With the advent of the social media, many would have thought more Nigerians will have direct access to media and information.
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The general consensus is that government must work with the private sector to make access to media as easy as possible in order for information on the SDGs to reach the target population
NDHS provides data on education, health, economy and other major sectors in the country.
