Picture a coastal community listening for an official evacuation order as a storm bears down. Some residents pack and leave; others hesitate, because a voice on social media is telling them the warning is exaggerated or part of a political scheme. In that moment, information is not a nice-to-have—it is as essential as seawalls and shelters. The United Nations Development Programme is now making this point in stark terms. In its 2026 report, Frontiers of Information Integrity in Climate Change and Climate-Related Disasters, produced through UNDP’s Governance, Rule of Law and Peacebuilding Hub and its Digital, AI and Innovation Hub,…

Imagine you’re scrolling through your social media feed late at night and a message catches your eye. It says something alarming about a new respiratory virus, or a so-called outbreak that health officials are supposedly hiding, or maybe a strange home remedy that’s being shared by thousands of people. Your first instinct might be to share it with your family group chat or repost it to warn your friends. But the Ministry of Health and Medical Services is asking everyone to pause before doing that. They have noticed a worrying trend: unverified and misleading claims about respiratory illnesses have been…