KARACHI: Karachi has made it to the Economists list of 60 safest cities in the world, though it settled at the last spot.
The Safe Cities Index 2017 is a report from The Economist Intelligence Unit sponsored by NEC. The report is based on the second iteration of the index, which ranks 60 cities across 49 indicators covering digital security, health security, infrastructure security and personal security.
Asia and the Middle East and Africa dominate the bottom of the index: Dhaka, Yangon and Karachi are at the bottom of the list. Of the ten cities at the bottom of the overall index, three are in South-east Asia (Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta), two are in South Asia (Dhaka and Karachi) and two are in the Middle East and Africa (Cairo and Tehran).
“At the bottom of the Index is one of the ten new cities added in 2017: Karachi. Although it performs poorly across all of the categories, it was dragged down by a very low level of personal security (60th). This is a reflection of a number of factors, but the main reason is that among the cities in the index, it experiences by far the most frequent and most severe terrorist attacks. Jakarta, which ranked last in 2015, is 57th this year, pulled from the bottom by the addition of Karachi and other cities like Yangon and Dhaka,” read the report.
Economist ranks Karachi 54th in terms of digital security and at last (60th spot) in terms of health facilities whereas it ranks 59th when it comes to infrastructure security.
Only five cities across the globe were placed above Karachi in the category of deaths from natural disasters. Annually, more than four people among one million lost their life in Karachi due to natural disasters.
The lowest part of the list is dominated by lower-income cities—Mumbai, Delhi, Manila, Yangon, Karachi and Dhaka all feature in the bottom ten in this category.
It was also highlighted that globally, massive amounts of investment will be required to upgrade old infrastructure in these cities to improve rankings.
