There are seven confederation zonal competitions. The teams were distributed according to their geographical positions. The winner of each competition competed in second round.
Cameroon qualified to second round as host country in 2017 Women's African Volleyball Championship.[3]
Tunisia and Algeria qualified to second round as top two FIVB ranking teams. Ranking as per August 7, 2017[4] was shown in brackets.
The second round is 2017 Women's African Nations championship which acts also as a qualifier for the 2018 FIVB World Championship.
The top two teams from World ranking as of September 2017 and the host will direct qualify from first round. If the top two ranking teams have already qualified, the next best team from their pool would replace them in this round.
If the tie continues as per the point ratio between two teams, the priority will be given to the team which won the last match between them. When the tie in points ratio is between three or more teams, a new classification of these teams in the terms of points 1, 2 and 3 will be made taking into consideration only the matches in which they were opposed to each other.
Match won 3–0 or 3–1: 3 match points for the winner, 0 match points for the loser
Match won 3–2: 2 match points for the winner, 1 match point for the loser