Doha breaks into world’s top 50 cities in Kearney’s 2023 Global Cities Index
Qatar’s capital Doha broke into the world’s top-50 cities for the first time since 2018 in the latest edition of Kearney’s Global Cities Index.
Thanks to the country’s substantial improvements in the Human Capital dimension, Doha finished in the 50th spot, moving up seven spots from 2022 (57th). Doha was ranked 53rd (2021), 68th (2020), 61st (2019) and 63rd (2018) in the previous years respectively.
The Qatari capital city’s rise was also driven by the return of international travel movement to pre-pandemic levels, thereby attracting large volumes of migrant talent and tourism. The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 also welcomed over 1.4 million visitors to the country.
The city also saw a six-point jump in its Business Activity ranking, continuing to reap the benefits of open economic policies introduced in recent years, ushering it into the top 50.
The renowned index by Kearney, a leading global management consulting firm, highlights the beginning of a shake-up in the traditional hierarchy of global cities.
Meanwhile, after a few years of lull, Doha significantly improved its rankings in the Global Cities Outlook ranking. Doha was overall 68th in the latest edition, improving 16 places from 2022 (84th). Doha was ranked 107 in 2021, 95 in 2020, 66 in 2019 and 63 in 2018 respectively.
Emerging hubs — including Doha — experienced incredible gains, contributing to a new distributed geography of opportunity. Doha’s meteoric rise globally as a sports, tourism and events hub has seen it climb into the top-50 for the first time and rank second regionally.
The Global Cities Index (GCI) seeks to quantify the extent to which a city can attract, retain, and generate global flows of capital, people, and ideas. Cities are measured against five key dimensions — human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, political engagement and business activity.
Recently, Qatar was ranked the most peaceful country in the Middle East and North Africa, according to the 17th edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI) 2023. The ranking also placed Qatar 21st in the world, recording a jump of two spots this year.
“Qatar’s commitment to realising its Vision 2030 has led its capital city to begin closing in on more established global city leaders. An increased focus on improving the investment environment, building upon the country’s decades-long undertaking to develop a world-class educational system and relative ease of access to global talent, has helped Doha to prove its resilience amid challenging global conditions,” said Rudolph Lohmeyer, Kearney Partner, National Transformation Institute.
While the GCI captures the current state of global city leadership, the Global Cities Outlook (GCO) aims to identify cities most likely to achieve global prominence. Here, the emergence of a distributed geography of opportunity was also present.
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