City needs miracle to achieve 2025 vision: Mayor

Senior Reporter
Harare Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni says the poor ranking of Harare in an annual liveabilty poll conducted by the Economist magazine highlights the size of the miracle the city needs to perform to achieve the vision of a world class city by 2025. The city was ranked 134 out of 140 cities in an annual poll carried out by the magazine’s intelligence unit.

The cities are ranked on 30 factors across various categories, including stability, health care, culture, environment, education and infrastructure.
Melbourne, Australia, was top for the fourth year in a row, with Vienna (Austria) coming second.

“A period of relative stability in Zimbabwe has put Harare on an upward trend in terms of liveability, although the city remains in the very bottom tier of liveability (as do Tripoli and Tehran),” read part of the report.

“The Government has announced an agricultural support package and a highly ambitious growth programme, and continues to stress its indigenisation plans. However, the fundamental problems in the economy have not been addressed, and investors are likely to remain wary and growth muted. Meanwhile, the opposition appears to be imploding,” the magazine said.

Harare was ranked the seventh worst ahead of Algiers (Algeria), Karachi (Pakistan), Lagos (Nigeria), Port Moresby (Guinea) and Dakar (Senegal).
Damascus (Syria) was ranked 140.

Mayor Manyenyeni said: “The wounded national brand heavily weighs us down no doubt. Unavoidably the Economist World report begs the questions: What do we need to be a world class city?”