Transparency International, the global civil society organization leading the fight against corruption, published the 20th edition of the Corruption Perceptions Index 2014.
The report which ranks 175 nations by their levels of perceived public corruption, show that corruption is a problem for all economies, requiring leading financial centres in the EU and US to act together with fast-growing economies to stop the corrupt from getting away with it, anti-corruption group Transparency International said today.
The Corruption Perceptions Index is based on expert opinions of public sector corruption. Countries’ scores can be helped by open government where the public can hold leaders to account, while a poor score is a sign of prevalent bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and public institutions that don’t respond to citizens’ needs.
The index gives countries a score between zero and 100, zero being highly corrupt and 100 being honest and transparent. As corruption is incapable of being objectively measured, the Index bases its finding on the perceptions of groups around the world in a position to assess corruption in the public sector, such as staff and experts of both the African Development Bank and the World Bank.
This approach has resulted in an Index which is highly regarded and relied upon by many companies when looking to do business overseas in order to ascertain their risk exposure with respect to bribery and corruption issues.
Israel ranks 37th out of 175 nations, and of the 34 OECD nations, Israel ranked 24th. Israel ranked on par with Spain, Poland and Taiwan.
The highest rated country was Denmark, with a ranking of 92, a slight improvement from its ranking the previous year. Second on the list was New Zealand, followed by the Nordic nations – Finland, Sweden and Norway, which tied with Switzerland. Seventh was Singapore, followed by Holland, Luxembourg and Canada.
The countries with the greatest improvement were Côte d´Ivoire, Egypt, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (+5), Afghanistan, Jordan, Mali and Swaziland (+4). Australia ranked 11th in the world with a score of 80, while the USA scored 74 to sit in 17th place while the UK was ranked 14th overall with a score of 78.
