Two years after the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 edition of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) reveals that corruption levels have stagnated worldwide. Despite signed paper commitments, 131 countries have not made significant progress against corruption in the last decade and 27 countries have lowered their score. Meanwhile, human rights and democracy are under attack all over the world.

The Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is the world’s oldest and most comprehensive tool for measuring corruption. It analyzes levels of public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories, scoring them from 0 to 100, based on the perceptions of experts and business executives about levels of corruption in the public sector. It is a composite index, i.e., it results from the combination of corruption analysis sources developed by a set of independent reference organizations, and ranks from 0 (perceived as very corrupt) to 100 (very transparent).

In 2021, CPI highlights the relationship between corruption and human rights abuse, and how countries perceived as highly corrupt are more likely to reduce their civic and democratic space and attack the rights of the population.

Data source: Transparency International CPI Report – 2021