Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of Transparency International has been successfully measuring the corruption levels in the public sector around the globe since 1995. Over the years, CPI has been proved to be the most credible, independent, long-running corruption measure in the world with reliable resources for a level of corruption in a particular country and all over the world.

Latest CPI published on January 25 th 2022 has revealed interesting findings regarding the global fight against the corruption. Clearly, corruption takes entirely different forms in each country and varies from region to region. Each year, follow-up discussions on CPI mainly concentrate on the scores and the rankings of individual countries and comparisons among them. However, overall CPI 2021 results reveal that corruption levels are stagnated worldwide. 

The corruption worsening in nearly all regions of the world is the alarming finding of the Index. The fact that the global?average?remains unchanged for the tenth year?in a row, at just 43 out of a possible 100 points, is indeed very concerning. Apparently, two-thirds of countries have been scoring below 50, indication of endemic corruption problems. While committing in various international fora and even bound by international conventions, 131 countries have not made significant progress against corruption in the last decade and 27 countries are at their lowest score ever.

What is happening to the world? Are we normalizing the corruption? Are we learning to live with it as we are experiencing the same with the virus?

Trouble at the top syndrome is clearly one of the main reasons of worldwide are at standstill.

Even though no country gets a perfect score in CPI, countries at the top receive less attention from the global community. However, countries in the so-called yellow zone of the Index showed some significant change over the years, unfortunately backwards.

Over the past 10 years, three of the strongest democracies in the Americas, the United States, Chile and Canada, show deterioration in the Index. Canada is now one of the countries experiencing the most significant drop in CPI of all 180 countries in past 5 years. Canada is going through the shock of Trudeau ethics investigations and money laundering scandals. Another interesting example is Australia dropping 12 points on the index since 2012, more than most of the OECD countries. Secrecy of real estate ownership in Australia, especially via opaque offshore companies, continues to be one of the reasons thereof.

Let's not forget that many of these high-scoring countries with relatively "clean" public sectors also continue to enable transnational corruption or harbor major portion of offshore companies. This clearly had consequences of their own corruption levels.

Also, the fact that civil liberties are declining, civil space is shrinking and even major democracies are having crisis has deteriorated the rule of law around the world. And corruption has always been the grease of authoritarian regimes.

Of the 23 countries whose CPI score significantly declined since 2012, 19 also declined on the civil liberties score. Turkey has been one of the most declining countries in the index for the last 9 years, losing 12 points and 43 rankings in the Index with a historical low record this year.

The latest CPI results indicate that despite concerted efforts and many hard-won gains, we cannot take progress against corruption for granted. And no country has a luxury for complacency.

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