Twitter has announced it will recruit 11 people in Ghana, the company’s first hires on the African continent, and that it is looking into opening an office there.

The social media company joins Facebook and other tech companies moving into Africa.

“Africa will define the future,” Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey, said in 2019 after a visit to Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa.

Dorsey’s tweet announcing news of the hires on Monday said: “Twitter is now present on the continent.”

The jobs advertised in Ghana include positions for engineering, marketing and communications specialists.

“Today, in line with our growth strategy, we’re excited to announce that we are now actively building a team in Ghana,” the company said in a statement.

Twitter to launch paid ‘super follow’ function that lets users charge for content

Read more

Twitter said its new team members would be working remotely under work-from-home policies while it explored “the opportunity to open an office in Ghana in the future”.

Ghana’s support for free speech and online freedoms made it the company’s choice for its first African location, Twitter said.

It added that the secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area base in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, had played a part in the decision.

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo said in a tweet that the country would be the location of Twitter’s headquarters on the continent, although this information was not included in the company’s statement.

“The choice of Ghana as HQ for Twitter’s Africa operations is EXCELLENT news,” Akufo-Addo said.

“This is the start of a beautiful partnership between Twitter and Ghana, which is critical for the development of Ghana’s hugely important tech sector.”

Facebook has several offices in Africa, including in Ghana’s neighbour Nigeria, where Mark Zuckerberg has been on a visit.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report