The number of road fatalities in Africa represents 31% of the relevant global figure. Europe could play an important role in supporting African countries to improve their road safety and traffic management performance. These considerations are addressed through the SaferAfrica project; which aims in creating favorable conditions and opportunities for the effective implementation of road safety and traffic management actions in the African countries. As an initial approach towards this goal, it was essential to understand per country the current status in terms of basic road safety aspects and definitions. Therefore, through a survey among a number of African countries, critical socio-economic, organizational-operational dimensions as well as basic data collection, processing and reporting definitions were assessed. The present paper, by presenting the results of this survey, aims to describe the basic fields that should be raised in order to assess in general terms the characteristics of a country’s road safety management.