2006 Corruption Perceptions Index

The international NGO Transparency International just released its 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index, "a composite index that draws on multiple expert opinion surveys that poll perceptions of public sector corruption in 163 countries around the world (...) It scores countries on a scale from zero to ten, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and ten indicating low levels of perceived corruption."

According to the organization:

"Countries with a significant worsening in perceived levels of corruption include: Brazil, Cuba, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and the United States. Countries with a significant improvement in perceived levels of corruption include: Algeria, Czech Republic, India, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Mauritius, Paraguay, Slovenia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uruguay."

People may also be interested in Transparency International's recently launched Bribe Payers Index that examines the "propensity of firms from industrialised countries to bribe abroad" and its Global Corruption Barometer, "a survey that assesses general public attitudes toward and experience of corruption in dozens of countries around the world."

Earlier Library Boy posts about corruption include:

• Political Corruption Resources (April 8, 2005): "Canada has been rocked by recent devastating testimony at the Gomery Commission hearings about alleged corruption in the administration of federal government advertising/sponsorship budgets. Many resources exist out there to track the phenomenon of political corruption on the international scale."
• Good Old Canadian Political Sleaze (April 11, 2005): "(W)e have a pretty interesting history when it comes to good old fashioned sleaze, from bribes to our first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald in exchange for the contract to build the transcontinental railway to the Munsinger Affair under Diefenbaker, during whose term of office our deputy minister of defense had a long affair with a German hooker who may have been working for the KGB. Then, of course, there was our minister of customs and excise during Prohibition who hired bootleggers to 'guard the border' and there is the small matter of the federal Liberals in the 30s accepting over $1 million in bribes in exchange for the right to dam a river in Quebec (...) Now whoever said Canadian history was boring?"
• Global Corruption Report 2006 (February 4, 2006): "Transparency International, an international non-governmental organization dedicated to combating corruption across the world, has just released its Global Corruption Report 2006. The major focus of this year's report is the impact of corruption in the healthcare sector in developing countries."