Introduction: Sub-Saharan African cities confront the dual imperative of decarbonisation and poverty alleviation, yet planning instruments designed to reconcile these objectives remain inadequately evaluated in mining-dependent contexts. Kitwe, Zambia’s second-largest city, exemplifies this tension: its Integrated Development Plan (2023–2033) projects a population exceeding one million by 2035, while nineteen informal settlements accommodate most low-income residents outside statutory coverage. Strategic net-zero commitments under the Green Economy and Climate Change Act No. 18 of 2024 and NDC 3.0 must be operationalised within the Urban and Regional Planning Act No. 3 of 2015, yet bridging mechanisms between strategic intent and statutory enforcement remain critically under-examined.
Methods: A mixed-methods approach integrates geospatial analysis of land use/land cover change (1990–2020) from Landsat imagery with a systematic policy content analysis of Kitwe’s IDP, the 8th National Development Plan, and allied instruments. Spatial metrics quantify the expansion of informal settlements relative to zoned biodiversity corridors, mine buffer zones, and green infrastructure networks. Semi-structured interviews with planning officers, ward councillors, and community leaders triangulate institutional barriers to implementation.
Results: Analysis reveals that 45.2% of Kitwe’s district area underwent land-cover change over 30 years, with built-up expansion concentrated in former miombo woodland classified as biodiversity-priority. Indigenous forest cover declined 24.9% between 1990 and 2015. Statutory planning covers fewer than 30% of actively developing peri-urban zones, creating governance vacuums enabling settlement encroachment onto contaminated tailings-adjacent land. A critical disconnect emerges between national net-zero commitments and the absence of enforceable local area plans that translate them into spatially binding development controls.
Conclusions: Kitwe’s planning system exhibits dual-track failure: strategic instruments lack statutory enforceability, while statutory instruments lack spatial reach into areas of greatest development pressure. Achieving integrated net-zero and pro-poor outcomes requires binding local area plans co-produced with informal settlement communities, supported by biodiversity offset mechanisms tied to mining licence conditions and by circular land-use frameworks.
