TI Releases Annual Corruption Perceptions Index

New Zealand tops the list with the lowest perceptions of corruption, followed by the usual Nordic front runners, Denmark, Finland and Norway.

Somalia, South Sudan and Syria have found themselves on the bottom.

Western Europe was listed as the best-performing region and Sub-Saharan Africa as the worst.

The countries which have improved their scores include Ivory Coast, Senegal and the United Kingdom.

TI’s Index is created for 180 countries, ranking them on a scale between 1 and 100, with 1 being the most corrupt and 100 being the most clean. More than two thirds of countries ranked scored below a 50. 

This year, TI’s press statements have emphasized that the fight against corruption correlates closely with media freedom. According to their data, countries with the least protection for press and activists correlated with the countries that score the lowest on their corruption index.

This data shows a different image of global corruption than the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index, released January 30th, which points to countries like the United States, Switzerland and Hong Kong as problematic. The Financial Secrecy Index measures transparency, ease of tax evasion and ability to launder money, while TI’s index focuses on perception of corruption.