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 18^th 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