Systematic and long-term observation of relevant environmental properties is a pre-condition not only to detect, understand and attribute climate change, but also for sound decision-making with regards to climate change adaptation, mitigation and food security. In the case of the African continent, there are still major observational gaps, resulting in major uncertainties for most of the key variables of climate change, above all the greenhouse gas balance (Valentini et al., 2014). SASSCAL, in collaboration with a range of partner institutions, is contributing to the closure of these gaps through the EU-funded project 'Supporting EU-African Cooperation on Research Infrastructures for Food Security and Greenhouse Gas Observations'  (SEACRIFOG). The project (www.seacrifog.eu) aims to develop a road map towards a tailored network of research infrastructures covering the African continent for the long-term observation of climate change and related environmental dynamics. SASSCAL’s main contributions include the identifi cation of essential variables and parameters to be captured by that network, an inventory of existing and planned research infrastructures as well as an assessment of corresponding data needs and gaps.