An organisation development approach to the improvement of road traffic safety in Zimbabwe

Abstract

In the study, I explored how to achieve sustained road-traffic accidents reduction in Zimbabwe. Road traffic accidents are indiscriminant and each year hundreds of people lose their lives in road traffic accidents in Zimbabwe. A mixed methods research approach was used to conduct the study. The study was therefore done in two phases. Phase 1 was a quantitative survey using questionnaires, and phase 2 was a qualitative case study using semi-structured interviews. A sample of 500 road-users drawn at random from internet databases formed the respondents for the quantitative phase of the inquiry. A further 20 snowball selected participants, formed the qualitative inquiry group. The key findings from the study were that effective intervention planning, timely measurement, adequate resourcing, and inclusive organization development interventions were the key drivers of successful road safety programmes. Additionally, critical interventions for sustainable road traffic safety in Zimbabwe included; community consultation and involvement in road traffic safety strategy formulation and implementation, mainstreaming road traffic safety education in the schools’ curricula, behavioral changes, financial, and engineering interventions.