Nairobi remains at tail end of best cities to live in
A traffic jam in Nairobi: Poor infrastructure and lack of amenities are among ills that give the capital city a bad name. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) poll, which was released Tuesday, ranks Kenya’s capital at position 120 in the list of 140 cities.
Nairobi has, however, improved two places from 122 last year after stagnating at 124 in 2013 and 2012. The city was ranked at position 125 in 2011.
Nairobi’s ranking was mainly hurt by the poor state of security, corruption as well as poor public schools and hospitals.
Lagos was last on the continent and three positions from the bottom globally. The rankings offer a sneak preview of a country’s level of development and are used as a tool when setting shop in new countries and paying expatriates.
Nairobi has for the fifth year in a row been ranked in the bottom 20 of global cities that are pleasant to live in, hit by insecurity, poor infrastructure and a rickety health system.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) poll, which was released Tuesday, ranks Kenya’s capital at position 120 in the list of 140 cities.
Nairobi has, however, improved two places from 122 last year after stagnating at 124 in 2013 and 2012. The city was ranked at position 125 in 2011.
“The Economist Intelligence Unit’s liveability rating quantifies the challenges that might be presented to an individual’s lifestyle in any given location, and allows for direct comparison between locations,” the report says.
Nairobi’s ranking was mainly hurt by the poor state of security, corruption as well as poor public schools and hospitals.
Kenya has struggled with a number of challenges in the past year, including attacks blamed on Somalia’s al Shabaab militants that have scared away tourists, eroding foreign exchange earnings in the key sector.
Poor roads, traffic jams, unstable electricity supply has consigned Nairobi to the tail end of the ranking, which placed the Kenya capital at position five on the continent behind Johannesburg, Pretoria, Tunis and Casablanca.
Lagos was last on the continent and three positions from the bottom globally. The rankings offer a sneak preview of a country’s level of development and are used as a tool when setting shop in new countries and paying expatriates.
The EIU’s survey assesses the liveability of cities based on factors like stability and the quality of health care, culture, the environment, education and infrastructure.
It also determines a city’s ability to attract and retain foreign investment, expatriates and tourists.
Nairobi’s low ranking could help multinational companies justify high salaries and hardship allowances they pay employees stationed in the Kenyan capital.
But it could also work in the reverse, encouraging transactional companies to overlook Kenya while considering where to invest.
“Assessing liveability has a broad range of uses, from benchmarking perceptions of development levels to assigning a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages,” says the survey.
“Companies pay a premium (usually a percentage of a salary) to employees who move to cities where living conditions are particularly difficult and there is excessive physical hardship or a notably unhealthy environment.”
Most improved
The poll ranked Nairobi and Zimbabwe’s Harare as the only African capitals to have improved the most over the past five years together with Beijing (China) and Dubai (UAE).
Kenya’s capital had a score of 53.1 out of the overall 100.
“Cities such as Nairobi and Cape Town are developing bus rapid transit systems (BRT)….With their speed and efficiency, the systems can help reduce the number of cars on the streets,” the report says.
Australia’s Melbourne maintained the top position as the world’s most pleasant city to live in for the fifth year in a row, followed by Vienna (Austria) and Vancouver in Canada.
Syria’s Damascus was at the bottom.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
