GNV News – February 13, 2026

On February 10, 2026, the Germany-based non-governmental organization Transparency International (TI) released its 2025 report on the Corruption Perceptions Index. Since 1995, TI has evaluated people’s perceptions of corruption in each country as an index, and the 2025 edition covers 182 countries (*). According to the report, the global average score on the Corruption Perceptions Index is 42 out of 100, the lowest level in more than a decade.

Comparing with 2012, when the current method of calculating the index was introduced, 50 countries have seen their scores deteriorate. Among them, in addition to states like Venezuela, Syria, and Hungary, which have shown a continuous decline, there are also countries that originally had high scores but have seen a rapid fall in recent years, as identified by TI; specifically, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Sweden are cited. In these countries, restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, patronage politics and the political use of trials, and a decline in judicial independence have been observed.

Furthermore, even in countries that appear to have high scores, such as Switzerland and Singapore, it has been pointed out that by engaging in money laundering and brokering bribes—activities not evaluated by the index—they are facilitating corruption in other countries.

By contrast, 31 countries, including Estonia, South Korea, and Seychelles, have seen their scores improve since 2012, according to the report. Among these are states that have implemented more democratic, rights-based reforms, while others have improved because corruption crackdowns under authoritarian regimes have been strongly enforced. TI notes that without an independent judiciary, freedom of the press, and an environment in which politics can be openly criticized, anti-corruption efforts remain fragile.

TI argues that during 2025, global efforts to tackle corruption weakened. Corruption, it says, harms people by reducing public funds needed for hospitals and disaster preparedness and by narrowing young people’s future opportunities.

* The Corruption Perceptions Index evaluates people’s perceptions of corruption and does not directly measure the actual state of corruption. A higher score means that the perceived level of corruption is lower.

Learn more about corruption → “GNV:#Corruption”

Learn more about the media and corruption → “How can stronger international news coverage bring change?”

Anti-corruption protest held in July 2025 in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, where an improvement in the Corruption Perceptions Index has been observed (Photo: Sasha Gulich / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0])