Facebook has announced its partnership with several African developers to launch products for the global market. The company made the announcement during at its annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco this week.

The social network says it is including African developers in its beta testing programme for the launch of new global products and features.

Emeka Afigbo, Strategic Product Partnerships Manager at Facebook says they believe that local entrepreneurs and developers will be the ones to meet the needs of their immediate community. "We are listening to our developer partners in Africa, and the strong showing for F8 is a reflection of our commitment to doing more with our partners across the continent to help them build products and businesses."

African developers who have partnered with Facebook to launch products at F8 include Afrinolly (Entertainment, Nigeria), GumTree South Africa (Classifieds, South Africa),vZikoko (Entertainment, Nigeria), Jobberman (Jobs, Nigeria/Ghana), The Net (Entertainment, Nigeria) and My Music (Media, Nigeria).

Facebook has hosted F8 Meetups in Nairobi, Lagos, Cape Town and Morocco where participants watched the sessions in San Francisco.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg congratulated some of the developers personally for their achievements.