(Business in Cameroon) - Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon, is one of the ten least liveable cities around the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (belonging to British group The Economist).

In the index it recently published, the British group ranked Douala as the 133^rd liveable city (out of 140 cities ranked).

The city scored 44 out of a max of 100. In the stability category, Douala scored 60 over 100 due to a rise in the crime rate. In the healthcare and education categories, the city scored 25 and 33.3 over 100  respectively. In the culture and environment category, Douala scored 48.4 over 100 while in the infrastructure category, it scored 42.9 over 100.

“Conflict and economic crisis define the cities that have struggled in our index over the past year,” the Economist Intelligence Unit indicates in the report.

“Vienna remains the most liveable of the 140 cities surveyed by The Economist Intelligence Unit. After displacing Melbourne from the top spot in 2018, ending a record run of seven consecutive years, Vienna retained its position at the head of the survey in 2019. The two cities continue to be separated by 0.7 percentage points, with Vienna scoring 99.1 out of 100 and Melbourne 98.4,” the report reads.

Sylvain Andzongo