According to the Corruption Perception Index produced by Transparency International, there has been a global decline in justice and the rule of law since 2016. The rise of authoritarianism in some countries contributes to this trend, and even in democratic contexts, the mechanisms that keep governments in check have weakened. Governments across the political spectrum have undermined justice systems, restricted civic freedoms and relied on non-democratic strategies to address recent challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Against this backdrop, this year’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) shows that only 28 of the 180 countries measured by this index have improved their corruption levels over the last 12 years, and 34 countries have significantly worsened. Despite progress made across the planet in criminalising corruption and establishing specialised institutions to combat it, corruption levels remain stagnant globally.

The CPI ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public-sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople. It relies on 13 independent data sources and uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean (or very low levels of corruption).

Most countries are largely failing to stop corruption – over 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries with CPI scores below the global average of 43. In addition, the top 25 countries in the index make up just over 10 percent of all people. Therefore, corruption remains a challenge that directly or indirectly affects the majority of people.

Top and bottom performers

For the sixth consecutive year, Denmark leads the ranking, with a score of 90. Finland and New Zealand follow closely with scores of 87 and 85, respectively. Norway (84), Singapore (83), Sweden (82), Switzerland (82), the Netherlands (79), Germany (78) and Luxembourg (78) complete the top 10 this year. The lowest performers are Somalia (11), Venezuela (13), Syria (13), South Soudan (13) and Yemen (16).

More information.