Abu Dhabi and Dubai remained the top liveable cities in the Middle East and Africa for 2024.
According to the Global Liveability Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which assessed 173 cities, Abu Dhabi and Dubai’s high rankings in education and healthcare were key factors in their overall liveability scores.
The cities were judged on five categories: stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. The biggest scores in education and healthcare were registered by the UAE cities Abu Dhabi and Dubai and Saudi Arabia’s cities Riyadh, Jeddah, and Al Khobar.
A report on Crime and Safety Indexes by the Numbeo website considered Abu Dhabi as one of the safest cities in the world, with a score of 88.2 Safety Index points. It also had the lowest Crime Index score with 11.8 points.
Dubai, on the other hand, ranked fifth on the list of the world’s safest cities.
When it comes to the health sector, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) showed that Dubai had 5,020 licensed and operational healthcare facilities and 13,370 licensed doctors in the first quarter of 2024.
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi had 3,323 licensed healthcare facilities during the same period. By the end of 2022, it had 12,922 licensed doctors.
As for the field of education, Abu Dhabi’s schools reached a total of 459 during the 2023-2024 academic year while Dubai’s private schools reached 220.
Other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries also received recognition for their stability and growing global influence. Kuwait City, Doha, and Bahrain were ranked 3rd, 4th, and 5th, respectively.
