Abstract
A range of published and grey literature over the last three decades has underlined the importance of urban and peri-urban agriculture and forestry (UPAF) in cities of developing regions. The focus in the published literature is on livelihoods, poverty reduction and ecosystems services at multiple city scales. Cities of developing regions, particularly in Africa, are searching for ways of addressing the unavoidable impacts of climate change and UPAF has demonstrated scalable adaptation and mitigation potential. However, evidence of UPAF’s role in mitigating and adaptation to climate change is scattered in various reports and has not been synthesized for its potential role in developing urban adaptation strategies. Building on the earlier poverty reduction focus of UPAF research, this paper contributes to UPAF knowledge regarding mitigating and adapting to climate change in urban and peri-urban areas in East and West Africa. The paper reports a synthesis based on a systematic review of the available literature on these regions, and selected sources on other parts of subSaharan Africa.