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UNESCO Abuja Regional Office is launching a call for abstracts and papers on the theme of "Creating a Peaceful Society: Media and Information Literacy, A Way out", for celebrating the (Oct 24 – 31, 2020). The theme highlights how to address disinformation and divides by recognizing and enhancing people’s competences in MIL to improve today’s communication landscape, and thereby building a peaceful society.

This call aims to determine the role of information and media that influences the value, attitudes and behaviour of the society, to provide a platform for knowledge production, and experience sharing on MIL practice and explore ways to improve the communication landscape in the non-Sahel region of West Africa. Besides, it is about identifying and sharing good practices related to MIL, as well as appropriate review mechanism that could be useful to monitor and inspire a systemic approach for promoting MIL and combating disinformation in the local context.

Main Theme: Creating a Peaceful Society: Media and Information Literacy, A Way out

Sub-Themes:

• MIL in Emergency Situations: Countering Disinfodemic in Pandemic, Conflict and Emergency Situations
• MIL and the Future: Innovation, Practices, Challenges and Way-out
• Combating Extremism, Hate Speech and Fake News in the era of Social Media
• MIL: Government, Society and Responsibility
• MIL and Knowledge Society: Personal Integrity and Power to Shape Opinion

This call is for all stakeholders from the MIL community across in the non-Sahel region of West Africa (namely Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo), including civil society groups, the academic community, research centres, think tanks, governments and public policy makers, United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations, MIL-relevant industries (communication and media companies, technological intermediaries, advertising, film industries, gaming sector, content industries, etc.), other relevant private sector organizations, city officials, smart cities, creative cities, knowledge networks, education institutions, youth organizations, libraries, museums, archives, other social media actors, and information and media professionals.

Provisional Timeline

• Submission of Abstracts: August 1 – September 2, 2020
• Review by the Selection Committee: September 3 – September 7, 2020
• Receiving Full Papers of the Best Thirty Abstracts: September 8 – October 22, 2020
• Presentation of the Best Three Papers at the Webinar: October 27, 2020
• Preparation for Publication: November, 2020

Submission Guidelines of Abstracts

Deadline: 5 p.m., September 2, 2020, (GMT+1)

• Submit your abstract through , in the form of PDF or Word, before 5 p.m., September 2, 2020 (GMT+1), and the file should be named as “Abstracts_Corresponding Author Nname(s)_The Institution(s)”;
• Abstracts can be written in English or French;
• Each abstract should include a cover page indicating the title of the paper, author(s) and titles, institutional affiliations, complete and available mailing address(es), email address(es) and telephones;
• The second page should include the research title, abstracts (maximum of 300 words) and a maximum of 5 keywords;
• A Scientific Committee will evaluate the abstracts based on their relevance to the sub-themes outlined, among other criteria.

Submission Guidelines of Full Papers

Deadline: 5 p.m., October 22, 2020 (GMT+1)

• Thirty (30) selected abstracts will be informed by UNESCO Abuja Regional Office via emails, for submission of the full papers;
• Full papers should be directed to the UNESCO Abuja Regional Office via e-mail at y.zhu@unesco.org, in the form of PDF or Word, before 5 p. m., October 22, 2020 (GMT+1). The file should be named as “Full Paper_Corresponding Author Nname(s)_The Institution(s)”;
• Your submission can be written in English or French;
• The paper length should be less than 15 pages, excluding the cover page, references and appendices, and it should apply the 6th edition of APA format;
• Each paper should include a cover page indicating the title of the paper, author(s) and titles, institutional affiliations, complete and available mailing address(es), e-mail address(es) and telephones;
• The second page should include the research title, abstracts (maximum of 300 words) and a maximum of 5 keywords.

Presentation of the Best Three Full Papers

The best three full papers will be invited to present at the webinar for the regional celebration of the 2020 Global MIL Week (October 27, 2020).

*NB: Submitted papers must be original work of the author(s) and should not violate any existing local and international copyright laws.

UNESCO Abuja Regional Office reserves the right in their absolute discretion to disqualify any entry or participant, or to waive any rules in the event of circumstance arising outside its control which in their opinion, make it desirable to cancel the call at any stage. On all matters, UNESCO’s decision shall be final.

• Olushola Macaulay, o.macaulay@unesco.org 
• Yachat Nuhu, ys.nuhu@unesco.org
• Ying Zhu, y.zhu@unesco.org