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Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Global Corruption Barometer

Corruption is one of my favourite topics on this blog, so I thought I would share this great resource with you. It's a pity the data from Russia and Brazil is so unreliable; it would be very interesting to see where they place.

From Wikipedia, 

The Global Corruption Barometer published by Transparency International is the largest survey in the world tracking public opinion on corruption. It surveys 114,000 people in 107 countries on their view of corruption.


Have you paid a bribe in 2013?

People in 95 countries have been surveyed whether they have paid a bribe to a public body during the last year; for a small number of countries, including Brazil and Russia, data on particular questions has been excluded because of concerns about validity and reliability. The margin of error for each country is 3%. The typical sample size is 1,000 people. Four countries - Cyprus, Luxembourg, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands - have a sample size of 500 people and a margin of error of 4%.

Unlike the other similar Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International, this is a survey directly asking the population instead of using "perceived expert opinions", which is liable to substantial bias and has been under criticism as such. In a 2013 article in Foreign Policy, Alex Cobham argued that the CPI embeds a powerful and misleading elite bias in popular perceptions of corruption, potentially contributing to a vicious cycle and at the same time incentivizing inappropriate policy responses. Cobham resumes: "the index corrupts perceptions to the extent that it's hard to see a justification for its continuing publication."

Note: 9 of the top 10 countries are African. That should not be a surprise to anyone.
RankCountry/Territory% of people who paid bribes[3]
1 Australia1
2 Denmark1
3 Finland1
4 Japan1
5 Spain2
6 Canada3
7 South Korea3
8 Malaysia3
9 Maldives3
10 New Zealand3
11 Norway3
12 Uruguay3
13 Portugal3
14 Belgium4
15 Croatia4
16 Georgia4
17 Italy5
18 United Kingdom5
19 Estonia6
20 Slovenia6
21  Switzerland7
22 United States7
23 Bulgaria8
24 Chile10
25 El Salvador12
26 Hungary12
27 Israel12
28 Palestine12
29 Jamaica12
30 Philippines12
31 Argentina13
32 Rwanda       1713
33 Vanuatu13
34 Czech Republic15
35 Kosovo16
36 Macedonia17
37 Romania17
38 Sudan17
39 Armenia18
40 Thailand18
41 Tunisia18
42 Cyprus19
43 Latvia19
44 Sri Lanka19
45 Peru20
46 Slovakia21
47 Turkey21
48 Colombia22
49 Greece22
50 Paraguay25
51 Lithuania26
52 Serbia26
53 Papua New Guinea27
54 Venezuela27
55 Bosnia and Herzegovina28
56 Madagascar 1028
57 Iraq29
58 Moldova29
59 Vietnam30
60   Nepal31
61 Mexico33
62 Kazakhstan34
63 Pakistan34
64 Solomon Islands                 2234
65 Bolivia36
66 Egypt36
67 Indonesia36
68 Taiwan36
69 Ukraine37
70 Jordan37
71 Bangladesh39
72 South Sudan39
73 Algeria41
74 Nigeria44
75 Ethiopia       1544
76 Mongolia45
77 Kyrgyzstan45
78 Afghanistan 2446
79 Democratic Republic of the   Congo                   246
80 South Africa47
81 Morocco49
82 India54
83 Ghana54
84 Tanzania     2556
85 Cambodia57
86 Senegal57
87 Uganda       1961
88 Cameroon62
89 Libya62
90 Zimbabwe62
91 Mozambique 762
92 Kenya70
93 Yemen74
94 Liberia           475
95 Sierra Leone84

I have inserted the ranking of the 25 poorest countries in the world just to compare poverty levels with corruption. The numbers can be found in to column with the country's name. Unfortunately, 15 of the 15 did not make it to the list, probably because of a lack of data or a distrust of the data as with Brazil and Russia. 

Continent - Country Poverty ranking 
A = Africa

A - Benin    23
A - Gambia 21
C - Haiti      20
A - Burkina Faso  18
A - Comoros         16
O - Kiribati           14
A - Mali                13
A - Togo               12
A - Guinea-Bissau 11
A - Guinea             9
A - Eritrea             8
A - Niger               6
A - Burundi           5
A - Malawi            3
A - Central African Republic 1

So 21 of the poorest 25 countries in the world are African. 2 from the South Pacific and one each from the Caribbean and Asia.

I have little doubt that the 15 countries which didn't make it onto the list should be there, and that were they not rampant with corruption, they might possibly work their way off the list of the 25 most impoverished countries in the world. 

Kudos to Rwanda. I don't know why they have such a relatively low corruption rating, but they put all other African countries to shame.



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