Nairobi emerges as a safe haven in chaotic globe

Nairobi city has been called ‘Nairobbery,’ a derision portraying a metropolis where criminals were having a field day.

International organisations regularly review the city’s safety status for expatriates.

Yet behind its rotten image, new figures by the UN and the World Bank show Nairobi is one of the safest cities in Africa and across the world.

Kenya publishes few crime statistics, creating a vacuum in public information that has long fuelled rumours and fear.

However, the country files the data with the international bodies that collate information on security.

World Bank’s latest report covering crime in urban Africa and other major cities says Nairobi is among the safest cities in the world.

The Violence in the City: Understanding and Supporting Community Responses to Urban Violence, found the number of murders and other crimes, particularly assault, theft, burglary and robbery, to be comparatively low in Nairobi.

Homicide rate in Nairobi has oscillated at between three to six cases per 100,000 people.

London has a rate of 9.5 per 100,000 people as do many other cities in Europe, putting the continental figures for Europe at nine per 100,000 people.

Major cities in America recorded a rate of between 10 and 11 per 100,000 people.

South America’s stood at 25.9, while South Africa, which features among the world’s most dangerous places to live, was at 50.7 intentional homicides per 100,000 people, followed by Lesotho’s 47.5.

The UN’s World Crime Survey is another compiled from national data sources and corroborated with those from the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat), Unicef, Interpol, and the Observatorio Centroamericano sobre Violencia (OCAVI).

Global recession

The UN Office on Drugs and Crimes collects the data on countries based on incidents reported to national authorities, police, as well as on detentions, prosecutions and convictions.

It emphasizes homicide as a measure of general crime levels, arguing that it is a proven proxy indicator for all forms of crime and important in determining patterns and emerging threats.