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Iraq and Somalia Included For First Time in New Report Assessing
Anti-Corruption Mechanisms and Government Accountability in 57 Countries
(Washington D.C.) – Regardless of income levels, the #1 corruption
threat facing a majority of countries is the unregulated flow of
money into the political process, a new report finds. The report,
a major investigative study of 57 countries, was released today
by Global Integrity, an award-winning international non-profit organization
that tracks governance and corruption trends globally.
"For the third straight year, poor transparency around the financing
of political parties and candidates was the weakest element of most
countries’ anti-corruption frameworks," said Global Integrity’s
Managing Director, Nathaniel Heller. "If we’re serious about rolling
back corruption and abuse of power in both the developed and developing
worlds, more effective safeguards to curb the influence of money
in politics are desperately needed. The Rod Blagojevichs of the
world are just the tip of the iceberg."
The Global Integrity Report: 2008 covers developed countries
such as Canada, Japan and Italy as well as dozens of the world’s
emerging markets and developing nations, from Argentina and China
to the West Bank and Iraq. Rather than measure perceptions of corruption,
the report assesses the accountability mechanisms and transparency
measures in place (or not) to prevent corruption through more than
300 "Integrity Indicators." Gaps in those safeguards suggest where
corruption is more likely to occur.
Global Integrity’s new Grand Corruption Watch List,
introduced as part of the 2008 report, includes Angola, Belarus,
Cambodia, China, Georgia, Iraq, Montenegro, Morocco, Nicaragua,
Serbia, Somalia, the West Bank, and Yemen, all countries viewed
at serious risk for high-level corruption. The Watch List identifies
countries where the lack of effective conflicts of interest regulations,
unregulated flows of money into the political process, and poor
oversight over large state-owned enterprises combine to pose a systemic
risk of large-scale theft of public resources. "Watch List countries
are unfortunately characterized by a toxic mix of corruption risk
factors that should be cause for alarm," said Heller.
Other major findings of the report include the following:
- The most significant anti-corruption failure
in much of the Arab world is poor access to government information.
While the countries in the Middle East and North Africa
assessed in the 2008 Report struggle to match global medians
on many factors, their comprehensive lack of effective access
to government information is virtually double those countries’
deficit on any other issue assessed by Global Integrity.
- Several key countries experienced gains or backsliding
since 2007. Important anticorruption improvements were
noted in Bangladesh and Nigeria; in China, a more positive
assessment was linked to the introduction of a new regulation
granting citizens access to government information. Noticeable
decliners included Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ecuador; Georgia
also slipped for the second straight year and continues
to struggle consolidating democratic gains since the 2003
Rose Revolution.
- Corruption and transparency challenges appear to be worsening
on the Horn of Africa, threatening to exacerbate tensions
in an already-fragile security situation. Drops in performance
in Kenya and Ethiopia, combined with Somalia’s ignominious
honor of boasting the worst-ever overall Global Integrity
country score, do not bode well for establishing the kinds
of checks and balances in all three countries that could
promote good governance and improve stability.
"The country assessments that comprise the Report offer among
the most detailed, evidence-based evaluations of anti-corruption
mechanisms available anywhere in the world," said Global Integrity’s
International Director, Marianne Camerer. "They provide policymakers,
investors, and citizens alike with the information to understand
the governance challenges unique to each country and to take action."
The report is the product of months of on-the-ground reporting and
data gathering by a team of more than 260 in-country journalists
and researchers who prepared more than a million words of text and
20,000 data points for their respective countries. The 2008 report
covers the following diverse countries:
Albania, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile,
China, Colombia, D.R. Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Georgia,
Ghana, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Italy, Japan,
Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Lithuania, Macedonia,
(FYROM), Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Solomon
Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda,
West Bank, Yemen, Zimbabwe
To access the Global Integrity Report: 2008, please visit
http://report.globalintegrity.org.
The Global Integrity Report: 2008 was generously supported
by the Australian Agency for International Development, the Canadian
International Development Agency, the Legatum Institute, and the
World Bank.
Global Integrity is a leading international non-profit organization
that tracks governance and corruption trends around the world. Working
with a network of several hundred in-country journalists and researchers
in 92 countries, we aim to shape and inform the debate around governance
and anticorruption reforms through in-depth diagnostic tools at
the national, sub-national, and sector levels. Our information is
regularly used by aid donors, civil society advocates, and governments
alike to press for governance reforms in both the developed and
developing world.
For more information about the organization, visit
http://www.globalintegrity.org.
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