The Role of Indigenous Languages and New Media in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria

Abstract

In a bid to arrest social, economic and environmental challenges on a global scale, the United Nations in 
2015 came up with the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 initiative. However, existing studies on 
SDGs have shown that the achievement of these goals in Nigeria has been limited and the contributing 
factors have been narrowed down to instability, governance and implementation. Little attention has, 
however, been paid to the role of indigenous languages in ensuring the achievement of the goals. This 
study analyses the goals using the Desk Review Research Method and establishes how indigenous 
languages and new media can play a role in ensuring the success of the 2030 goals. It brings to light how 
these languages as well as social media can be utilised to reach more people, especially the rural 
majority of African countries and concludes that avenues such as social media influencing, pop culture, 
adaptation of technology and mass indigenous communication are possible solutions to the slowdown of 
the success of the developmental goals.