ReviewPlants (Basel, Switzerland)2025
Greening African Cities for Sustainability: A Systematic Review of Urban Gardening's Role in Biodiversity and Socio-Economic Resilience.
Review in Plants (Basel, Switzerland), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Urban and Home-Based Vegetable Gardening Practices in Ethiopia: A Review on Challenges, Opportunities, and Perspectives.TheScientificWorldJournal · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Urban gardening, particularly through food-producing green spaces, is increasingly recognized as a key strategy for addressing the complex challenges of climate change, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, and social inequity in African cities. This systematic review synthesizes evidence from 47 peer-reviewed studies across sub-Saharan Africa between 2000-2025 to analyze how urban home gardens, rooftop farms, and agroforestry systems contribute to sustainable urban development. The protocol follows PRISMA guidelines and focuses on (i) plant species selection for ecological resilience, (ii) integration of modern technologies in urban gardens, and (iii) socio-economic benefits to communities. The findings emphasize the ecological multifunctionality of urban gardens, which support services such as pollination, soil fertility, and microclimate regulation. Biodiversity services are shaped by both ecological and socio-economic factors, highlighting the importance of mechanisms such as polyculture, shared labour and management of urban gardens, pollinator activity and socio-economic status, reflected in sub-Saharan urban gardens. Socioeconomically, urban gardening plays a crucial role in enhancing household food security, income generation, and psychosocial resilience, particularly benefiting women and low-income communities. However, barriers exist, including insecure land tenure, water scarcity, weak technical support, and limited policy integration. Although technologies such as climate-smart practices and digital tools for irrigation are emerging, their adoption remains uneven. Research gaps include regional underrepresentation, a lack of longitudinal data, and limited focus on governance and gender dynamics. To unlock urban gardening's full potential, future research and policy must adopt participatory, equity-driven approaches that bridge ecological knowledge with socio-political realities.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.