The Confederation of African Rugby was allotted one place in the 1999 Rugby World Cup by direct qualification (Africa 1) and one place in the repechage tournament.
This was in addition to the automatic qualifying place granted to South Africa as champions of the 1995 tournament.
Nine teams participated in the qualification tournament for Africa which was held in four stages.
The three lowest ranked sides played a single round robin tournament (drawn for home or away), with top placed team progressing to the next round and the other two teams dropping out.
A four team single round robin was played and Namibia secured the (Africa 1) qualification for RWC 1999 as the top placed side, with Morocco in second place progressing to the repechage.