Consistent and reliable climate observations for Southern Africa are an important source of information for climate service-related activities. Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) supported the cooperation among the national meteorological services of Angola, Botswana, Germany, and Zambia to improve the management of observed climate data in the region. This cooperation allowed the stablisation of a climate data management system in which CLIMSOFT - a freely available software suite for storing climate data - is the main component. Additional open-source applications have been developed to provide an easy-to-use interface to visualize, download, digitize, and import climate data from and into CLIMSOFT. Besides that, substantial progress in the storage, quality control, and management of present and historical climate data recorded in paper media has been achieved. The measures taken were accompanied by continuous training and support to ensure the long-term maintenance of the new data management.