Qualifying began with a round robin repechage tournament between Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Burundi (the three lowest ranked teams at the time in Africa).
The second stage saw the remaining 12 teams divided into 4 groups of 3 where they played a single round-robin tournament to decide the pool winners.
The top-2 teams after this round then progressed to the final stage of the African Qualification process, with seeding determining who played who in a knock-out competition in 2022.
[5] However, due to restrictions in Namibia, Rugby Africa moved the location of this pool to the Ivory Coast.
[9] At the same time, Tunisia also withdrew from the competition meaning Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso gained automatic progression to the next stage of the qualification process.
[10] All matches were played in France across the Stade Delort in Marseille, and Stade Maurice David in Aix-en-Provence[11] Rankings as of 27 June 2022 prior to tournament start date Assistant referees: Anthony Woodthorpe (England) Ben Blain (Scotland) Television match official: Philippe Bonhoure (France)