The Osborne Dam site on the Odzi River, Zimbabwe, was identified in the 1950s by the planning engineers of the Ministry of Water.

Osborne Dam is an earth embankment dam, creating a reservoir with a surface area of 2,600 hectares, storing 400,000 megalitres on the Odzi River, a tributary of the Save River, in Zimbabwe The catchment area is 1,392 km² the embankment is 66 metres high, crest length 1,007 metres and the volume of earth in the embankment is 5.1 million cubic metres.

The spillway is the "drop inlet" type with a crest radius of 15.7 metres, a 6-metre diameter shaft and conduit conveys the overflow to the flip bucket.

The construction was financed with aid supplied by the Italian Government, the main contractor was Salini Costuttori SpA, with local subcontractors K.W.Blasting doing tunneling and hard excavation.

A rest camp with self-catering lodges is located at a vantage point overlooking the lake.