Abu Dhabi ranked safest in Middle East and Africa

UAE capital Abu Dhabi has been ranked as the region’s safest city, the only city from the Middle East and Africa region to make it to the first half of Economist Intelligence Unit’s Safe Cities Index 2015.

The index that ranks 50 global cities pegs Abu Dhabi at No. 25, ahead of some other global and regional cities such as Milan (No. 26), Rome (No. 27), Doha (No. 29) and Kuwait City (No. 36).

EIU says its Safe Cities Index measures the relative level of safety of a diverse mix of the world’s leading cities using four main categories of safety: digital security, health security, infrastructure safety and personal safety.

Abu Dhabi is ranked among the Top 10 Cities on the Digital Security (No. 9) as well as the Infrastructure Security (No. 10) parameters. The city, however, lags on the Health Security parameter (No. 45) even as it performs average on the Personal Security scale (No. 32).

Indian capital Delhi features at No. 42 out of the 50 cities ranked while the country’s commercial capital Mumbai is ranked even lower at No. 44.

Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh (No. 46), South Africa’s Johannesburg (No. 47), Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City (No. 48), Iran’s Tehran (No. 49) and Indonesia’s Jakarta (No. 50) are ranked among the least safe cities.

It adds that the Index focuses on 50 cities selected by EIU based on factors such as regional representation and availability of data. Therefore, it should not be considered a comprehensive list of the world’s safest cities (i.e., a city coming number 50 in the list does not make it the most perilous place to live in the world).

Every city in the Index is scored across these four categories. Each category comprises between three and eight sub-indicators, which are divided between security inputs, such as policy measures and level of spending, and outputs, such as the frequency of vehicular accidents.

Tokyo, the world’s most populous city, tops the overall ranking. The Japanese capital performs most strongly in the digital security category, three points ahead of Singapore in second place.

The EIU report states that safety is closely linked to wealth and economic development. Unsurprisingly, a division emerges in the Index between cities in developed markets, which tend to fall into the top half of the overall list, and cities in developing markets, which appear in the bottom half.

Significant gaps in safety exist along these lines within regions, it notes. Rich Asian cities (Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka) occupy the top three positions in the Index, while poorer neighbours (Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta) fill two of the bottom three positions.

Nevertheless, it warns that wealth and ample resources are no guarantee of urban safety. Giving the example of the region’s cities, EIU says that four of the five Middle Eastern cities in the Index are considered high-income, but only one makes it into the top half of the Index: at 25 Abu Dhabi is 21 places above Riyadh at number 46.

Similar divides between cities of comparable economic status exist elsewhere. Seoul is 23 positions below Tokyo in the overall ranking (and 46 places separate the two on digital security).
 

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