Facebook has announced that it will be opening an office in Lagos, Nigeria which will be its second office on the African continent. The social media giant opened its first Africa office in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2015.
The office will be aimed at supporting the entire Sub-Saharan Africa region, the office is expected to become operational in H2 2021 and will be the first on the continent to house a team of expert engineers building for the future of Africa and beyond. It will be home to various teams servicing the continent from across the business, including Sales, Partnerships, Policy, Communications as well as Engineers.
The investment in the new Facebook office follows the 2018 opening of NG_Hub, its first flagship community hub space in Africa in partnership with CcHub. In 2019, they opened a Small Business Group (SBG) Operations Centre in Lagos, in partnership with Teleperformance. It provides outsourced support to all English-speaking advertisers across Sub-Saharan Africa, the SBG office supports Small Medium Businesses (SMBs) through its Advocacy, Community & Education (ACE) programme, as well as its Marketing Expert sales programmes – all aimed at enabling SMBs to accelerate the growth and development of their businesses.
Other investments by Facebook include, the recent rollout of its SMB Grants programme in Nigeria and South Africa, aimed at supporting over 900 businesses by providing a combination of cash and ad credits to help small businesses as they rebuild from COVID. 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-up’s and developers.
Kojo Boakye, Facebook’s Director of Public Policy, Africa, had this to say, “Our new office in Nigeria presents an important milestone which further reinforces our ongoing commitment to the region. Our mission in Africa is no different to elsewhere in the world that is 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.”