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.”
The CPI’s methodology is shown at the end of this post.
According to TI, “the global average remains unchanged for over a decade at just 43 out of 100. More than two-thirds of countries score below 50, while 26 countries have fallen to their lowest scores yet. Despite concerted efforts and hard-won gains by some, 155 countries have made no significant progress against corruption or have declined since 2012.”
The CPI generates a lot of media coverage and is aggressively marketed by TI and is perhaps 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.