The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks of countries around the world, based on how corrupt their public sectors are perceived to be. The results are given on a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

This year’s CPI paints a grim picture of the state of corruption worldwide.

More than two-thirds of countries score below 50. And despite some progress, nearly half of all countries have been stagnant on the CPI for almost a decade. These countries have failed to move the needle in any significant way to improve their score and combat public sector corruption.

2020 was marked by the outbreak of a global pandemic which profoundly reshaped the world.

Corruption and emergencies feed off each other, creating a vicious cycle of mismanagement and deeper crisis. The large sums of money required to deal with emergencies and the need for urgency in disbursing these funds form a perfect storm for corruption.

Our research shows that corruption not only undermines the global health response to COVID-19, but also contributes to a continuing crisis of democracy.

Meanwhile, several countries this year made unexpected losses or gains – and new evidence that many “clean” countries ranked at the top of the CPI are in fact fuelling corruption outside their borders.

While corruption differs in scale and scope depending on the region, it has proved a universal obstacle to combatting COVID-19.

At the top of the CPI, the pandemic tested transparency levels in Western Europe and the European Union. In Asia Pacific and the Americas, some governments used COVID-19 to consolidate power, but left citizens without emergency aid. In the Middle East and North Africa, countries weakened anticorruption measures, while parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia curtailed civil liberties and reduced much-needed checks and balances. At the bottom of the CPI, Sub-Saharan Africa responded to COVID-19 with protests against rising costs of living, corruption and the misuse of emergency funds.

Check out the latest corruption wins, scandals and predictions for each region of the world.