The Lagos State Resilience Office (LASRO) in partnership with Andersen Nigeria, an advisory firm, are collaborating to tackle misinformation in the state.
The Chief Resilience Officer, LASRO, Dr Folayinka Dania, made this known in Ikeja, at the Opening Ceremony of a Workshop on the Development of the Lagos Resilience Intelligence System, with focus on the Risk of Misinformation and Disinformation.
Misinformation can be described as an unintentionally shared false content, while disinformation is the deliberate fabrication of false narratives.
Dania, who was represented by Mr Femi Dada, the Head, Urban Planning and Design, LASRO, described misinformation and disinformation as threat to livelihoods in Lagos State, hence, needed to be identified and tackled.
She said that with the increasing number of social media applications and usage, people indiscriminately share information without crosschecking the accuracy of such information.
According to her, misinformation and disinformation are priority risks to be focused on by the government, so as to be proactive about resilience.
“it is important to remind ourselves that building resilience is germane to our existence.
“The Lagos State Resilience Office was established to strengthen the capacity of individuals, communities; businesses; institutions and systems within the state to survive; adapt and grow in the face of risks (chronic stresses and acute shocks), associated with urbanisation.
“In Y2019, the preliminary resilience assessment for Lagos revealed the economic downturn, flooding, disease outbreak; urban fires; major road accidents, unemployment, inadequate physical and social infrastructure, inadequate health system and over-crowding, among others as some of the chronic stresses and acute shocks experienced by Lagos.
“By Y2020, the Lagos Resilience Strategy was released with a vision, 3 pillars, 10 goals and 31 resilience-building initiatives to address the shocks and stresses.
“However, it was discovered that while the Lagos Resilience Strategy was addressing the shocks and stresses the state experiences, it is necessary to constantly identify; assess; track and control these risks, through a multi-hazard risk management and resilience apparatus.
“These will allow for proper identification of the root causes, triggers; amplifiers; effect; impacts and solutions,” she said.
Dania said that LASRO, therefore, intended to ensure that these risks were properly identified, tracked and mitigated through the development of the Lagos Resilience Intelligence System (LRIS), as a state-wide risk management and resilience tool.
She said that LRIS aimed at considering the full range of risks the state faced, their interrelationships; define the state’s risk appetite, including risk tolerance and unacceptable levels.
According to her, these will help build an early warning system and make informed decisions to predict, prepare for; prevent; respond to and mitigate the impact of risks.
Also speaking, Utobong Hughes, Senior Manager, Business Advisory Services, Andersen Nigeria, said that the workshop aimed at bringing industry experts together to understand how the risk of misinformation and disinformation in Lagos could be accurately forecast and responded to accordingly.
Hughes said that there was the need to identify the roots of misinformation and disinformation, the best ways to measure and anticipate the causes before they become detrimental.
(NAN)
