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Corruption World-Wide

Corruption.  Everything is measured these days.  It has been said if it cannot be measured, it doesn’t exist. So, even corruption has been measured.  While there is no real method to measure actual corruption, it is measured indirectly by perceptions of residents.  So, we go transparent, that is to the transparency website to examine corruption*.  

A total of 176 countries were evaluated.  The lower ranked countries have the lowest scores (based on a 0-100 score). They are by plagued by untrustworthy and badly functioning public institutions like the police and judiciary.  This includes bribery and extortion. Higher-ranked countries tend to have more freedom of the press, public access to information about public expenditure, higher standards of integrity for officials, and generally independent judicial systems.  

Below, we show the bottom or most corrupt countries (Table 1) followed by the top or least corrupt countries (Table 2).

Table 1. Most corrupt countries

Country CPI2016 Score Rank Population (2015)
Somalia 10 176 10,787,104
South Sudan 11 175 12,339,812
Korea (North) 12 174 25,155,317
Syria 13 173 18,502,413
Libya 14 170 6,278,438
Yemen 14 170 26,832,215
Sudan 14 170 40,234,882
Afghanistan 15 169 32,526,562
Guinea-Bissau 16 168 1,844,325
Venezuela 17 166 31,108,083
Iraq 17 166 36,423,395

This makes Somalia as the most corrupt country on earth.  Only one of these countries is in the Americas, Venezuela. The second worst such country is Haiti, with a score of 20.

Table 2. Least corrupt countries

Country CPI2016 Score Rank Population (2015)
New Zealand 90 1 4,595,700
Denmark 90 1 5,676,002
Finland 89 3 5,482,013
Sweden 88 4 9,798,871
Switzerland 86 5 8,286,976
Norway 85 6 5,195,921
Singapore 84 7 5,535,002
Netherlands 83 8 16,936,520
Canada 82 9 35,851,774
Germany 81 10 81,413,145
Luxembourg 81 10 569,676
United Kingdom 81 10 65,138,232

Of these thirteen countries, ten are in Western Europe.  But where is the USA?  It has a score of 74 and is ranked 18th worldwide.   I suppose that a part of the score is overall perception by residents.  For example, in the USA, there is an undertow of dissatisfaction by many.  This reduces the overall score. 

There is little overall correlation of corruption with population, but the average score (lowest average rank) for Western Europe far exceeds the  next (least) corrupt region, the Americas.  Third least corrupt of the regions are the countries of the Asian Pacific.  The most corrupt region is sub Saharan Africa.

Have a favorite country?  Go to the website below.  Check it out.


* http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016#regional
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