The West Africa Association of Customer Service Professionals plans to launch what it describes as Africa’s first structured virtual assistant marketplace in the first quarter of 2026, aiming to formalise a fast-growing segment of the continent’s remote-work economy.
The platform, to be hosted on WAACSP’s website and branded as the WAACSP Virtual Assistant Portal or Dashboard, will aggregate training, certification, profiling and hiring into a single digital marketplace.
The association, in a statement signed by its head of Administration, Christian Anozie, says the portal will allow organisations to search, verify and engage virtual assistants across a range of roles, while enabling African professionals to access local and international work opportunities.
The move comes as global demand for remote customer support, administrative and digital services continues to rise, with African talent increasingly competing in cross-border labour markets. WAACSP, a regional professional body for customer service and customer experience practitioners, says the portal is designed to address trust gaps that have limited wider adoption of virtual assistance services on the continent.
According to the association, the portal builds on an overhaul of its virtual assistant training programmes completed in 2024, which expanded courses from basic skills to full professional certification. In 2025, WAACSP certified and profiled nearly 1,400 virtual assistants across the ECOWAS region and facilitated engagement opportunities for them, it said.
The new portal will operate as an open-access platform, allowing virtual assistants trained by other institutions to join. To maintain quality control, WAACSP plans to introduce a verification layer that distinguishes assistants who meet its professional standards. Those trained elsewhere will be able to obtain WAACSP verification by sitting for the association’s certification test, without enrolling in its full training programme.
Virtual assistants on the platform will be categorised across five high-demand areas: customer support, executive and administrative assistance, IT support, social media management, and human resources or learning and development.
WAACSP projects that by the fourth quarter of 2026, the portal will host more than 5,000 virtual assistants available for full-time, contract, hourly and part-time work. While the platform is geared toward international clients seeking African remote talent, the association says it will also serve local entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses looking for flexible staffing options.
The portal is being developed with support from a mix of local and international partners. US-based 20four7VA is providing advisory input based on its experience in the global virtual assistant market, while EmployMe E-Learning is supporting the learning, certification and assessment framework. Nigerian technology firm TechDave is handling the platform’s design, deployment and ongoing management, including data security and scalability.
WAACSP says the portal will be rolled out in phases, starting with a pilot onboarding in the first quarter of 2026 before expanding across Africa and into international markets. Details on registration for virtual assistants and hiring organisations will be released at launch.
The initiative underscores a broader push by professional bodies to position Africa as a credible source of skilled remote labour, as digital work increasingly reshapes employment patterns across the continent.