The Federal Government, in collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), will on April 30, 2026, launch the International Media and Information Literacy Institute (IMILI) in Abuja, the first and only such UNESCO Category 2 Institute in the world. The Institute is currently housed by the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) in Abuja.
UNESCO formally gave its blessing to the Institute when its General Conference adopted a resolution on November 5, 2025, at its 43rd session for the designation of the Category 2 International Media and Information Literacy Institute (C2 IMILI) in Abuja under the auspices of UNESCO, making it a partner institution officially recognized by UNESCO, working independently but contributing to UNESCO’s global goals.
The decision was the culmination of over two years of assessment and preparation after the Federal Government first formally informed Member States of UNESCO of its intention to establish such an Institute in April 2023.
A UNESCO Category 2 Institute is an organization that is not legally part of UNESCO, but is formally affiliated with it and works to support UNESCO’s programmes and objectives. Under the framework of UNESCO, while a Category 1 Institute is fully owned and operated by UNESCO, funded through UNESCO’s regular budget and has staff that are UNESCO employees, a Category 2 Institute (Centre under the auspices of UNESCO) is established and funded by individual Member States rather than UNESCO, legally independent from UNESCO, operates under an agreement with UNESCO, and supports UNESCO’s mandate in areas like education, science, culture, and communication.
The key characteristics of a Category 2 Institute are that it works in alignment with UNESCO’s priorities and programmes, has a formal cooperation agreement with UNESCO, uses UNESCO’s name and branding “under the auspices of UNESCO”, is governed by its own board, which usually includes a UNESCO representative, and is financially supported by the host country or partners, rather than from UNESCO’s core budget.
The core functions of a Category 2 Institute typically include conducting research and capacity-building, providing training and technical assistance, supporting policy development, serving as a regional or global knowledge hub, and promoting international cooperation in UNESCO’s fields of competence.
Category 2 Institutes allow UNESCO to extend its global reach without expanding its core bureaucracy, leverage national resources and expertise, promote regional leadership and ownership, and build networks of specialized centres worldwide.
According to UNESCO, its 194 Member States recognize the indispensability of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) to empower citizens to flourish while engaging with verified information, while MIL also helps people to resist misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.
UNESCO describes the vision of IMILI as “a Media and Information Literate World” – a world that embraces the value of media and information literacy for the future that we want; a world that recognizes empirical evidence of media and information literacy impact on social life and ensures that it is inclusively and sustainably, rightfully accessible to all.
It stressed that it is a vision that is shared by countries globally and that the promotion of MIL is vital to sustaining communities that are informed, democratic, resilient to racism, peaceful, and where women and men have equal rights.
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr. Mohammed Idris, said: “The designation of IMILI as a Category 2 Institute comes at a pivotal moment, not just for Nigeria, but for the global community. We are all besieged by torrents of information, where the lines between fact and fiction are often deliberately blurred by misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech. These challenges respect no borders and threaten the very foundations of our democracies and social cohesion.”
Calling on all countries to incorporate MIL into formal education systems at all levels, UNESCO said, “Research on the impact of MIL on societies is urgent. Research will inform policy decisions, enable innovative actions, and sustain interventions that drive MIL for all. The C2 IMILI is a crucial milestone that will contribute to deepening UNESCO’s global leadership in advancing MIL for all.”
Mr. Tawfik Jelassi, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, hopes that “Through IMILI, we can expect to see stronger
regional cooperation, new opportunities for youth empowerment, and an acceleration of Africa’s leadership in promoting MIL at both regional and global levels.”
The Institute aims to serve as an international observatory for Media and Information Literacy development and a catalyst for sustained research that offers empirical evidence on the social impact of MIL globally. It seeks to contribute to research and strengthen capacities across multi-stakeholders in various sectors, including education, digital platforms, media, families, women networks, youth-related organizations, duty-bearers, and influencers involved in media and information literacy.
It also plans to offer advisory services and policy support to technical and political actors internationally, regionally, and nationally.
Specifically, its strategic objectives are to:
• Incrementally increase – over three, seven- and ten-years intervals – track, package and present to different stakeholder groups – inclusive collaborative research and intercultural knowledge generation on media and information literacy for social and democratic discourses, peace, and sustainable development;
• Within seven to ten years, stimulate, increase and monitor the availability of media and information literacy trainers (educators, teachers, policymakers, government officials, community leaders, first responders, influencers, etc.), to develop, implement and enhance capacity development approaches.
• To develop and sustain media and information literacy multi-stakeholder dialogues and platforms leading to new commitments to accelerate media and information literacy to address digital transformation opportunities and challenges.
