On January 25, 2017, Transparency International, the non-governmental organization responsible for the ITA indicators used in the Transparency AOC Consortium portal and whose functions are to monitor and disseminate business and political corruption in international development, presented the results of its Corruption Perception Index 2016 worldwide.
This index has been published annually since 1995 and classifies countries according to their levels of perception of corruption, as determined by expert evaluations and opinion polls. It includes a classification of 176 countries according to their level of corruption, based on what their citizens perceive, numerous specialists and various groups that have been consulted by different international organizations.
THEindex emphasizes that systemic corruption and social inequality reinforce each other, creating a vicious circle between corruption, unequal distribution of power in society and inequality in the distribution of wealth. These bad practices cause the citizens' dissatisfaction with the political class, which in turn promotes the emergence of populist politicians, which are a kind of worrying symptom of what's going on.
One of the main conclusions of theindex is that corruption in the public sector worldwide is massive and widespread on a global scale, as 69% of the 176 countries contemplated scored less than 50 on a scale of 0 (much corruption) at 100 (no corruption). On the other hand, it should be emphasized that there are more countries that dropped positions in theindex than those who went up.
In the case of Spain, the perception of corruption by citizens remains at the same level as in 2015 (58 out of 100), but nevertheless regresses five positions in the world ranking (41 of 176), the worst position ever reached.
Denmark and New Zealand top the list with 90 out of 100 and are closed by Somalia (10) and Sudan (11).
Transparency International proposes a solution to this state of affairs: the adoption of reforms that include the disclosure of public records and the establishment of mechanisms for citizenship to require governors to be accountable, to make a decision that affects their lives. and the sanction of corrupt behaviors.
Image: By Transparency International [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
