ZIMBABWEAN content creators continue to face exclusion from Facebook’s monetisation programme, which is limited to only eight African nations.
The development has prompted calls for high-level government engagements to secure digital economic inclusion.
With over 2.46 million Zimbabwean Facebook users unable to monetise content locally, creators resort to risky workarounds like routing revenue through foreign accounts, while other African countries reap economic benefits from formal partnerships with Meta.
“Due to the limitations of Facebook not being currently monetised in Zimbabwe, local content creators are currently monetising their pages using other people in other countries to register the sales for monetisation, and also having a strategy of advertising business on their Facebook pages,” New media expert, Engineer Timothy Kuhamba noted.
Engineer Kuhamba highlighted that Zimbabwe can copy Kenya’s successful model, where the government negotiated with Meta in 2022.
“In August 2022, the President of Kenya engaged Facebook directors and Kenya managed to monetise Facebook in Kenya. The President of Kenya is now taking another step so they can receive their money through the mobile social media platforms. For Zimbabwe, the Ministry of Sports Recreation and Arts needs to table a proposal to His Excellency, so that when he goes to New York from September 9 to September 23, they can engage the Facebook directors and monetisation can be done in Zimbabwe. The benefits that are there are that it creates employment for the local content creators and also it generates an inflow of the much-needed foreign currency into our Zimbabwean economy.”
As Kenya and Nigeria harness digital dividends, Zimbabwe stands at a crossroads, where government support could transform Facebook from just being a platform of expression to an empowerment platform.
