Urban agriculture (UA) can be described as a strategy of sustainable urban development that has the potential to combine ecological conservation, food security, and socio-economic resilience. The objective of this study is to evaluate the multidimensional sustainability of UA in Makassar City, Indonesia, and to formulate a policy framework to enhance its sustainability.    The data presented herein were collected via expert discussions and semi-structured interviews with 23 purposively selected stakeholders, including academics, practitioners, urban planners, legislators, and government officials. Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) was utilised to derive sustainability indices, complemented by prospective and interdependence analyses to identify leverage points for policy intervention. The overall sustainability index during the specified period (2016-2020) was classified as "less sustainable" (43.02%). While the environmental (51.84%) and technological (65.09%) dimensions demonstrated an improvement, categorising as "moderately sustainable", the economic (46.15%), social (49.81%), and institutional (39.20%) dimensions exhibited a decline. The following key policy recommendations are proposed: first, the enhancement of planning and management systems; secondly, the optimisation of coordination among institutions; and thirdly, the optimisation of the social, economic and environmental functions of UA. The findings of this study provide empirical evidence for policy makers to design integrated, context-specific strategies for sustainable UA in tropical cities.