As part of its continued commitment and ongoing investment in Africa, Facebook has announced that it will be opening an office in Lagos, Nigeria. This will be its second office on the African continent. Aimed at supporting the entire Sub-Saharan Africa region, the office is expected to become operational in the second half of 2021. It will be the first on the continent to house a team of expert engineers building for the future of Africa and beyond.
Facebook’s office will be home to various teams servicing the continent from across the business, including sales, partnerships, policy, communications as well as engineers.
Commenting on this development,Ā Ime Archibong, Facebook’s head of new product experimentation said:”The opening of our new office in Lagos, Nigeria presents new and exciting opportunities in digital innovations to be developed from the continent and taken to the rest of the world. All across Africa, we are seeing immense talent in the tech ecosystem, and I’m proud that with the upcoming opening of our new office, we’ll be building products for the future of Africa, and the rest of the world, with Africans at the helm. We look forward to contributing further to the African tech ecosystem.”
The investment of the new Facebook office follows the 2018 opening of NG_Hub, its first flagship community hub space in Africa in partnership with CcHub, and the 2019 opening of a small business group (SBG) operations centre in Lagos, in partnership with Teleperformance. Providing outsourced support to all English-speaking advertisers across Sub-Saharan Africa, the SBG office supports small medium businesses (SMBs) through its advocacy, community andĀ education (ACE) programme, as well as its marketing expert sales programmes ā all aimed at enabling SMBs to accelerate the growth and development of their businesses.
“Our new office in Nigeria presents an important milestone which further reinforces our ongoing commitment to the region”, commented Kojo Boakye, Facebook’s director of public policy, Africa. “Our mission in Africa is no different to elsewhere in the world – to build community and bring the world closer together, and I’m excited about the possibilities that this will create, not just in Nigeria, but across Africa.”
Since
the opening of its first office in 2015, Facebook has made a number of
investments across the continent, aimed at supporting and growing the tech
ecosystem, expanding and providing reliable connectivity infrastructures and
helping businesses to grow locally, regionally and globally. This includes the
recent rollout of its SMB grants programme in Nigeria and South Africa, aimed
at supporting over nine hundred businesses by providing a combination of cash
and ad credits to help small businesses as they rebuild from Covid-19. The
development of 2Africa, the world’s largest subsea cable project that will
deliver much needed internet capacity and reliability across large parts of
Africa, as well as its ongoing training programmes across the continent which
support various communities including students, SMBs, digital creatives, female
entrepreneurs, start-ups and developers.
Nunu Ntshingila, regional director,
Facebook Africa,said: “We’re delighted to be announcing our new office in
Nigeria. Five years after opening our first office on the continent in
Johannesburg, South Africa, we’re continuing to invest in and support local
talent, as well as the various communities that use our platforms. The office
in Lagos will also be key in helping to expand how we service our clients
across the continent.”