With Covid-19 becoming a reality for countries across the globe, the remote working mode has become the new normal. Nestpick released a study in July highlighting the destinations most attractive to digital nomads in search
of a new home, taking into account legislation as well as livability factors such as weather, cost of living, and equality.

In their methodology, a number of factors were taken into consideration such as cost of accommodation, speed
of internet, access to home office rentals, remote workers’ immigration etc. Each country was overall rated out of 100. The only African country to be on the index is South Africa with Cape Town ranked 16. The top five cities globally are Melbourne, Australia; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Sydney, Australia; Tallinn, Estonia, and London, United Kingdom.

Most expensive cities in Africa

Prior to the pandemic, the cost of living was already a question up in the air. Mercer’s 2021 Cost of Living City Ranking of 400 global cities has in a recent report cited N’Djamena (Chad) as the most expensive city in Africa for expatriates with Lusaka (Zambia), the least expensive.

“The rankings provide an important insight for multinationals on the cost of recruiting or relocating an expatriate in Africa, and also help human resources leaders to structure a remuneration package to attract the right skills for an assignment,” Mercer said in the report.

Based on the ranking, N’Djamena moved up two spots in 2021 from 15th to 13th place, while Lusaka moved from 201 to 208 in the rankings. The report went on to say that given the impact of the pandemic on African economies, organizations could use the cost of living rankings to consider implementing regional pay structures. This will enable people to move more efficiently across borders by mitigating some of the key challenges when it comes to cost of living, pay competitiveness, and purchasing parity.