{"id":1873,"date":"2017-02-23T13:00:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1873"},"modified":"2017-03-02T11:59:52","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T10:59:52","slug":"not-every-country-is-equally-corrupt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2017\/02\/23\/not-every-country-is-equally-corrupt\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Every Country Is Equally Corrupt"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, one regular reader of this blog sent me an e-mail. He had been looking for commentaries about corruption in Africa<\/strong>, and he couldn\u2019t find that many. \u201cWhy so?\u201d was his question. And my answer: \u201cYou’re right in that I don’t talk much about corruption in my blog. The reason is that I try to focus on the positive aspects.\u201d While corruption is a fact, it\u2019s also a fact that not every country is equally corrupt<\/strong> \u2013 although to be precise, I should be talking about individuals in a country.<\/p>\n

The non-governmental and Germany-based organization Transparency International<\/strong><\/a> published last month the Corruption Perception Index<\/strong> (CPI) for 2016. They have been publishing this index since 1995, in which they rank countries by their perceived levels of corruption<\/strong>, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. The scale ranges from 0 (extremely corrupt) to 100 (extremely clean or absent of corruption). We focus on the performance of sub-Saharan African<\/strong> (SSA) countries,<\/strong> and analyze their relative positions as well as the impact of this index on key economic indicators.<\/p>\n

\"Efforts<\/a>
Efforts at cleaning corrupt practices<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We are pleased to point out that there are 4 SSA countries among the top 50 cleanest nations worldwide<\/strong>: Botswana, Cape Verde, Mauritius and Rwanda<\/strong>. Not surprisingly, the top 10 performers in the CPI index in SSA also enjoy higher standards of living. For instance, according to the World Economic Outlook Database from the IMF<\/strong><\/a>, they average a GDP per capita<\/strong> (in $US) of $3,260 <\/strong>and they are expected to grow at the fastest rates<\/strong>, 4% <\/strong>on average, this 2016 (the IMF does not have the official figure for last year yet).<\/p>\n

However, the 2 most perceived as corrupt countries<\/strong> in the world also belong to the sub-Saharan region: South-Sudan<\/strong> and Somalia<\/strong>. The bottom 9 countries — the IMF doesn\u2019t cover Somalia in their database — average a GDP per capita of only $1,208. <\/strong>\u00a0This is 2.7 times less <\/strong>than the top 10 performers. Further, they are expected to barely grow<\/strong> in 2016, 0.4%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Source:<\/a>
Source: Transparency International<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the readers might have inferred, corruption perception affects many aspects of society,<\/strong> and it is important for SSA governments to take steps towards greater transparency<\/strong>. Some are taking this seriously: 19 SSA countries increased their index scores. <\/strong>Most remarkable are Sao Tom\u00e9 and Principe<\/strong>, Burkina Faso<\/strong> and Cape Verde<\/strong> (+4 points<\/strong>). Nevertheless, 20 countries worsened their transparency perceptions <\/strong>last year, notably Lesotho<\/strong> (-5 points<\/strong>), Central African Republic<\/strong>, South Sudan<\/strong>, Djibouti<\/strong>, Mozambique<\/strong>, Ghana<\/strong> and Mauritania<\/strong> (-4 points<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Finally, some good news regarding some of the most populated countries in SSA<\/strong>. Tanzania<\/strong>, Nigeria<\/strong> (+2<\/strong>), Ethiopia<\/strong>, South Africa<\/strong> and Kenya<\/strong> (+1<\/strong>) have also improved their transparency index last year and they combine almost 400 million people<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Nadim Elayan, Research Assistant at IESE Business School, collaborated in this article.<\/em><\/p>\n

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