Transparency International reveals CPI 2021

Transparency International (TI) is a global movement working in over 100 countries to end the injustice of corruption.

TI focuses on issues with the greatest impact on people’s lives and held the powerful to account for the common good. Through our advocacy, campaigning and research, we work to expose the systems and networks that enable corruption to thrive, demanding greater transparency and integrity in all areas of public life.

TI strongly takes corruption by defining as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.Corruption erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers economic development and further exacerbates inequality, poverty, social division and the environmental crisis.

Exposing corruption and holding the corrupt to account can only happen if we understand the way corruption works and the systems that enable it.

The world at a standstill

This year’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) reveals that corruption levels are at a worldwide standstill.

The CPI ranks 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. The results are given on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

This year, the global/ average/ remains unchanged for the tenth year/ in a row, at just 43 out of a possible 100 points. Despite multiple commitments, 131 countries have made no significant progress against corruption in the last decade. Two-thirds of countries score below 50, indicating that they have serious corruption problems, while 27 countries are at their lowest score ever.

Since its inception in 1995, the Corruption Perceptions Index has become the leading global indicator of public sector corruption. The Index scores 180 countries and territories around the world based on perceptions of public sector corruption, using data from 13 external sources, including the World Bank, World Economic Forum, private risk and consulting companies, think tanks and others./ The scores reflect the views of experts and business people.

The process for calculating the CPI is regularly reviewed to make sure it is as robust and coherent as possible, most recently by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in 2017. All the CPI scores since 2012 are comparable from one year to the next.

Trouble at the top, COVI-19 and human rights

As anti-corruption efforts stagnate worldwide, human rights and democracy are also under assault.

This is no coincidence. The latest analysis shows that protecting human rights is crucial in the fight against corruption: countries with well-protected civil liberties generally score higher on the CPI, while countries who violate civil liberties tend to score lower.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has also been used in many countries as an excuse to curtail basic freedoms and side-step important checks and balances.

What’s happening around the world?

While corruption takes vastly different forms from country to country, this year’s scores reveal that all regions of the globe are at a standstill when it comes to fighting public sector corruption.

At the top of the CPI, countries in Western Europe and the European Union continue to wrestle with transparency and accountability in their response to COVID-19, threatening the region’s clean image. In parts of Asia Pacific, the Americas, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, increasing restrictions on accountability measures and basic civil freedoms allow corruption to go unchecked. Even historically high-performing countries are showing signs of decline.

In the Middle East and North Africa, the interests of a powerful few continue to dominate the political and private sphere, and the limitations placed on civil and political freedoms are blocking any significant progress. In Sub-Saharan Africa, armed conflict, violent transitions of power and increasing terrorist threats combined with poor enforcement of anti-corruption commitments rob citizens of their basic rights and services.

Check out the latest corruption wins, scandals and predictions for each region of the world.

Nepal’s position remain unchanged

Nepal did not improve its position in the annual CPI published by TI, the global anti-corruption watchdog. Neither did Nepal worsen the situation.

Remarkably, the index revealed in January 2021 had shown Nepal in the 117th position among 180 countries, the position has remained the same this year also. The score of 33 also has not changed.

“This can be considered as the evidence that no progress has been made in corruption control,” the organisation’s Nepal chapter informs in a press statement dated January 25, 2022.

Nonetheless, the organisation has listed Nepal as a country that significantly improved in the past 10 years.

TI uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is for most corrupt and 100 is for least corrupt. A score below 50 is considered as having a relatively higher level of corruption in a country.

Among some South Asian countries, Nepal has been ranked below Bhutan (25th), Maldives (85th), India (85th) and Sri Lanka (102th). Pakistan (140th), Bangladesh (147) and Afghanistan (174) are the only countries behind Nepal.

Nepal’s ranking was made based on surveys on different fields conducted by six institutions such as the World Bank, World Economic Forum, Global Insight, Bertelsmann Foundation, World Justice Project and Varieties of Democracy Project (VDEM).

Padmini Pradhananga, president of TI Nepal, says that reduced scores in these areas means that public service delivery has remained poor and the government has not been taking action against those responsible for poor results in public construction.

The organisation, in November 2020, had made public its Global Corruption Barometer showing the ratio of people thinking that corruption is increasing in the country is 58 per cent, the highest in the Asian region. The government had officially refused to accept the report.