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To support the humanitarian response in the Sahel region, Insecurity Insight is conducting ongoing social media monitoring to understand perceptions and key concerns around the aid response in Niger, with the aim of contributing to the development of aid agencies’ communication strategies in response to community sentiment.
Summary
From July to September 2024, 30 predominantly international aid-related organisations were mentioned in 246 public posts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) in Niger. The international organisations included 12 aid or development organisations, eight United Nations (UN) organisations, six humanitarian organisations, and one aid donor.
Facebook and X accounted for 50% of all posts each, but posts on X increased compared to the previous quarter.
In Niger the highest proportion of aid-related posts originated from the social media accounts of aid or civil sector networks (42% of posts) and only 22% were from edited media, compared to Burkina Faso and Mali, where over half of all aid-related posts come from edited media.
The posts published in Niger reached an estimated 500,000 people, averaging more than 2,000 views per post, and generated 9,000 engagements. Sentiment analysis showed that all but four posts were either positive or neutral, with negative posts mainly propagating false information that aid organisations had artificially created or spread the Mpox viral infection and distributed harmful vaccines. Negative posts underperformed in terms of their spread on social media, reaching on average around only 1,000 users and generating an average of 33 engagement actions per post.
However, 12% of the 363 comments (i.e. responses to posts) expressed negative sentiments that often stemmed from mistrust and misinformation. An analysis of negative comments about aid-related organisations in Niger reveals deep distrust towards several individual international organisations, viewing them as “imperialist” entities advancing Western interests through manipulative social agendas, potentially harmful vaccine programmes, economic exploitation, espionage, and pervasive corruption, all of which are believed to obstruct genuine African progress and independence.