ON editors note: This was taken from a Guardian newsletter. To read the full story go here: The Transparency International (TI) index is released at this time every year. It’s a ranking of perceived levels of corruption that takes the tired stereotype of state and institutional-level fraud being a purely developing world problem to a level playing field in which it’s revealed as an endemic global issue. Britain, with its current leadership utterly devoid of integrity, looks shameful. In the TI rankings, Australia recorded its worst ever score. Countries such as Afghanistan and Somalia still languish at the bottom of the rankings, but the clear signs are that this is an issue for both hemispheres. Two years into the pandemic and this year’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) reveals that global progress on ending corruption remains at a standstill. Despite commitments on paper, 131 countries have made no significant progress against corruption over the past decade, and last year 27 countries reached historically low CPI scores. As Kenneth Mohammed wrote in his opinion piece this week: '2021 has been a bumper year for corruption.' At the same time, human rights and democracy across the world are under assault – and that is because they are intrinsically linked. If we don’t hold integrity close, then we will lose everything of value in state and private sector life. Corruption enables abuses of human rights and of justice. It tears apart a decent society, widening that gulf between rich and poor, and if you do not challenge the rot where it starts then you lose all control of where it spreads. The 2021 CPI results, as senior foreign affairs correspondent Peter Beaumont wrote, show that countries that ensure basic rights for their citizens and protect civil and political liberties leave less room for corruption. They can control it better. The fundamental freedoms of association and expression are crucial in the fight for a world free of corruption. There is an urgent need to take corruption seriously everywhere in the world’s political spaces. It is not a joke for mop-haired posh boys to clink their champagne glasses and congratulate themselves on diverting taxpayers money into their chums’ pockets; it is a marker that shows how far a people has slid into a tainted, spoilt society where democratic decline and human rights abuses are a part of life. As Delia Ferreira Rubio, the chair of TI, said this week: 'Human rights are not simply a nice-to-have in the fight against corruption. Authoritarianism makes anti-corruption efforts dependent on the whims of an elite. Ensuring that civil society and the media can speak freely and hold power to account is the only sustainable route to a corruption-free society.' Tracy McVeigh, editor, Global development Picture: Protesters tow an effigy of President Rodrigo Duterte in Manila, Philippines, by Rolex dela Peña for EPA. Duterte has overseen severe crackdowns on freedom of expression since his election in 2016. Read more on the latest corruption rankings SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN |