In an annual non-event, Transparency International (TI) released its so-called Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) (see here). The CPI “ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people. It relies on 13 independent data sources and uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.”
According to TI, the “data sources are collected by a variety of reputable institutions, including the World Bank and the World Economic Forum” and the “sources and surveys which make up the CPI are based on carefully designed and calibrated questionnaires, answered by experts and businesspeople.”
According to TI, this year’s CPI “reveals that corruption levels remain at a standstill worldwide” and “131 countries have made no significant progress against corruption over the last decade, and this year 27 countries are at a historic low in their CPI score.”
The CPI generates a lot of media coverage and is a popular tool for business organizations in ranking risk (and thus prioritizing compliance). However, for the reasons highlighted in this post compliance professionals should take the CPI with a grain of salt.
