16 February 2004
HARARE has been branded among the worst cities for expatriates to reside in the world, authenticating Zimbabwe's accelerated slide into disaster, according to the latest Economist Intelligence Unit's hardship survey.
The hardship survey, released a fortnight ago by the world's leading provider of country intelligence, states that Harare suffered the greatest actual drop in living standards because of "ongoing unrest".
Out of the 130 ranked cities, Harare is at number 113 which is a plunge down eight places from its 106 position recorded during the last survey carried out in December 2002.
At 113, Harare ranks jointly with Iran's Teheran, Bogota, Colombo and Vietnam's two cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh.
The EIU describes the situation in Africa and the Middle East as a bad and "worsening".
Overall, the African average for hardship rose by 1,1 percent to 46,2 percent since the last survey was conducted, whose average was 45,1 percent.
"Hardship scores in Africa and the Middle East have increased by just over 1% since the 2002 survey. This is partly because the situation in Zimbabwe has continued to worsen under President Robert Mugabe and partly because the situation in Iraq has had a negative impact on surrounding countries like Kuwait," says the EIU.
In Africa, only South Africa's capital city Pretoria scored well. It was ranked at number 80 and followed by Casablanca (Morocco) and Africa Cup of Nations' host, Tunis, jointly at 95.
Political and religious violence, combined with under-developed infrastructure and inconsistency in the availability of goods, place both Algiers at 125 and Lagos at 127 in the classification of cities entailing serious hardship .
Other African cities to rank dismally include Gabon's capital, Libreville at 111, Cameroon's Doula ranked 112, Dakar rated 122 and Nairobi at 119.
Austria's Vienna joined Melbourne (Australia) and Vancouver (Canada) at the top as the easiest cities in the world for expatriates to live in.
As in the previous survey, Port Moresby the capital of Papua New Guinea is branded the worst place to live at position 130.
Port Moresby, according to the EIU, is a dangerous place because of lack of security, corruption and high humidity.
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