Anti-Corruption Day: 10 Most And 10 Least Corrupt Countries Around The World.

Corruption is a form of dishonesty which we all are well acquainted with. Almost every nation considers corruption as a criminal offence and has strict laws, punishment and penalties for the miscreants. Generally, corruption is considered as an act undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, to gain an illicit benefit by misusing the entrusted powers. Main forms are corruption include Bribery & Embezzlement.

Corruption occurs at every scale, from small favours between a small number of people ( known as petty corruption) to corruption that affects the government on a large scale (known as grand corruption). Most countries struggle with corruption occurring due to corrupt political and administrative people/departments.

2018 International Corruption Perception Index:

There is no particular method for measuring corruption in a country. However, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), launched in 1995 by Transparency International, uses expert assessments and opinion surveys to determine the state of corruption in a country. CPI defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit.”

The surveys and assessments are carried out across different countries, which are later ranked based on their corruption score from 0 to 100, where ‘0’ means most corrupt and ‘100’ means least.

The 2018 CPI throws light on the state of corruption in 180 different countries through 13 different kinds of surveys and expert assessments, scoring countries on the corruption scale. It includes taking opinions of business people on the state of corruption in the country, performance assessments from a group of analysts, and other assessments which are targeted to estimate the extent of corruption in the country.

It upsets us to know that more than two-thirds of countries surveyed have a score below 50 on this 2018’s CPI. The average global CPI score is just 43. This highlights the failure of economies to fight & significantly control corruption, which is the primal cause of economic crisis around the democracies of the world.

Here are the ten most corrupt nations around the world as per the latest Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International for 2018:

Most Corrupt Countries:

1. Somalia (10/100)

2. South Sudan (13/100)

3. Syria (13/100)

4. Yemen (14/100)

5. Korea, North (14/100)

6. Equatorial Guinea (16/100)

7. Guinea Bissau (16/100)

8. Sudan (16/100)

9. Afghanistan (16/100)

10. Burundi (17/100)

India ranks 78th amongst 180 countries with a score of 41/100 in 2018’s CPI.

This map from Wikipedia shows the state of corruption across different countries of the world:

The survey has highlighted that despite some progress, most countries are failing to make serious inroads against corruption.

Transparency International’s Chair Person, Delia Ferreira Rubio, is quoted on the organisation’s website “Corruption is much more likely to flourish where democratic foundations are weak and, as we have seen in many countries, where undemocratic and populist politicians can use it to their advantage.”

Source: Transparency International

Individual nations allocate their resources for the control and regulation of corruption and crime. Strategies to counter corruption are also summarized. However, while we discuss corruption as an economic-pandemic, many countries have accepted that several systems of the financial departments, administrative departments, police forces, etc. won’t work effectively without corruption. This signifies that instead of fighting corruption together, people have started accepting as a part of their daily, leaving minimal hopes for improvisation.

The change starts with a step and steps are to be initiated by us, the citizens of this global democracy and economy.

International Anti-Corruption Day

Every year United Nations celebrates 9th December as International Anti-Corruption Day. The agenda of the UN behind the celebration of this day is to spread awareness about corruption and motivate citizens like us to take action against corruption, hold our leaders accountable for their actions and become an integral leader ourselves.

Corruption and bribery is the biggest global economic-epidemic, eating developing and developed economies. The UN quotes on their website:

“Every year $1 trillion is paid in bribes while an estimated $2.6 trillion are stolen annually through corruption – a sum equivalent to more than 5 per cent of the global GDP.”

UN’s Development Programme shows that the number of funds lost to corruption is 10 times the amount that goes into development assistance.

On that note, here are the 10 least corrupt countries around the world as per CPI 2018:

Least Corrupt Countries: