The United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP) and the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) of Guyana on Tuesday signed aMemorandum of Understanding (MoU) which aims at enhancing the knowledge base surroundinghate speech and fostering institutional resilience in the face of this growing challenge.

Thispartnership comes when Guyana prepares for the 2025 General Elections, a period thathistorically witnesses a surge in ethnic and racial hate speech. 

In an age of unprecedented information access, a click, a swipe, or a scroll can open a constantstream of news, articles and social media posts competing for our attention. However, within thisocean of data lies a hidden danger: hate speech from information pollution. Understood as thespread of false, misleading, manipulated and otherwise harmful messages, information pollutioncan quietly shape opinions, instigate conflict, and erode trust in reliable information. 

As experienced during the pandemic and now with the multiple crises worldwide, informationpollution is threatening our ability to make informed decisions, participate in democraticprocesses, and contribute to the building of inclusive, peaceful and just societies. In fact, theUnited Nations Secretary-General has identified this phenomenon as a major contemporarythreat, emphasizing the urgent need for comprehensive strategies to combat it. 

In this scenario, UNDP, as the largest United Nations provider of electoral assistance and withextensive experience in the field of democratic strengthening, is developing a series of innovativetools to support national, regional, and global efforts to promote information integrity and theresilience of information systems. Similarly, the ERC, being a constitutional entity mandated topromote the elimination of all forms of discrimination, has long recognized the impact of hatespeech on societal divisions and is committed to proactive measures to counteract it. As part ofthe MoU, UNDP will provide comprehensive support to the ERC, including: 

1. Technical assistance to strengthen ERC’s existing methodologies for mapping andcountering disinformation and hate speech.
2. Strengthen ERC’s capacities to access social media data, providing crucial insights intoinformation pollution.
3. Enhancing the ERC’s technological infrastructure to better respond to thesechallenges.

Central to this initiative is the ‘Digital Kit for Democracy,’ which includes the powerfuleMonitor+ system—a state-of-the-art social media monitoring and analysis tool that leveragesartificial intelligence to track and analyse harmful content across various platforms.

eMonitor+ facilitates the extraction and analysis of thousands of pieces of information from platforms likeFacebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and others. This information increases knowledge ofpernicious phenomena in the information ecosystems of countries and regions. 

Furthermore, as it is deployed simultaneously in various countries with different informationdynamics, eMonitor+ is helping establish a standardized language and comparative datacollection, analysis, and dissemination methodologies, so that cross-border dialogue, learningand cooperation can be facilitated. This makes eMonitor+ particularly usefulin contexts with littleresearch or data available on these topics. Only in 2024, six countries in Latin America and theCaribbean have started implementing eMonitor+ (Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Panama, Peru,Venezuela), and have since accessed a portfolio of good practices, innovative approaches, andpartnership possibilities to tackle electoral mis/disinformation and hate speech. 

The UNDP Resident Representative for Guyana and Surinam, Mr. Gerardo Noto said, “Byequipping the ERC with the tools and methodologies to combat hate speech and misinformation,we are taking proactive measures to strengthen democracy and promote social cohesion.”‘ 

The Chairman of the ERC, Shaikh Moeenul Hack, noted that “the ERC launched a proactiveCountering Hate Speech campaign aimed at reducing racial and ethnic violations in the lead-upto the elections. The E-Monitoring Tool will be instrumental in enhancing our capacity to capturea wider reach of content. This innovative, automated system will efficiently identify key words andphrases that are racially and ethnically offensive, allowing us to respond more swiftly andeffectively.” 

Through this collaboration, the ERC will enhance its Media Monitoring Unit’s capacity to identifyand address racially- and ethnically-motivated hate speech, disinformation, and technology facilitated gender-based violence. The implementation of eMonitor+ will provide ERC with thenecessary tools to extract and analyse large volumes of data, fostering a deeper understandingof the challenges posed by information pollution. 

The signing of the MOU forms part of the wider ERC-UN System campaign to ‘Counter HateSpeech’, which was launched in June 2024. This campaign is an element of UN Guyana’s nationalimplementation of the global United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech, whichhighlights the UN’s ongoing commitment to promote peaceful, inclusive and just societies 

As this initiative unfolds, both UNDP and ERC look forward to setting a benchmark for collaboration against information pollution in the region, ultimately working toward a more equitable and democratic future for all Guyanese citizens (ERC press release)