Twitter has announced plans to open its first African office in Ghana. In line with Twitter growth strategy, the social media giant aims to grow its African presence.

In November 2019, Co-founder and CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey toured Africa, where he visited Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and Ethiopia. Jack had meetings and discussed with a number of African tech leaders. And before he departed back for the U.S., he announced about his plan to come back in 2020 and live in Africa for six months. Due to the pandemic, he could not follow through.

Jack Dorsey via a tweet made this official announcement about the company presence on the continent. The president of Ghana, Nana Akufo–Addo expressed his gratitude to the social media company for choosing Ghana as Headquarters ( HQ) for Twitter’s Africa operation.

The choice of Ghana as HQ for Twitter’s Africa operations is EXCELLENT news. Gov’t and Ghanaians welcome very much this announcement and the confidence reposed in our country. 1/3 #TwitterInGhana #TwitterGhana https://t.co/HdCqFgXK0x

— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) April 12, 2021

According to a statement on the company’s blog, Twitter’s mission is to serve the public conversation, and it’s essential, for the world and for Twitter, to increase the number of people who feel comfortable participating in it. To do this, we need to make it easier for everyone to join in and provide more relevant experiences for people across the world.

Twitter explains why it chose Ghana as Africa HQ

With 54 countries on the continent, why Ghana? Twitter explained reasons on it’s blog why Ghana was selected as the first choice for Twitter Africa HQ. As a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate.

The blog post quotes Ghana’s recent appointment to host The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area which aligns with Twitter overarching goal to establish a presence in the region that will support its efforts to improve and tailor its service across Africa.

Furthermore “Whenever we enter new markets, we work hard to ensure that we are not just investing in the talent that we hire, but also investing in local communities and the social fabric that supports them. We have already laid foundations through partnerships with Amref Health Africa in Kenya, Afrochella in Ghana, Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) in Nigeria, and The HackLab Foundation in Ghana. As part of our long-term commitment to the region, we’ll continue to explore compelling ways we can use the positive power of Twitter to strengthen our communities through employee engagement, platform activation, and corporate giving.”

The company plans to hire specialists to join several teams including product, design, engineering, marketing and communications. Full details on current job openings can be found on the Twitter Careers site.

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