Measurement and assessment repository

The Africa Integrity Indicators (AII) assesses social, economic, political and anti-corruption mechanisms at the national level across 54 African countries.

It comprises 54 in-practice indicators, divided into two categories: transparency and accountability, and social development. The transparency and accountability section consists of 30 indicators examining issues including the rule of law, accountability, elections, public management integrity, civil service integrity and access to information. Global Integrity takes into account both de jure provisions and de facto realities of implementation in each country. The social development section consists of 24 indicators on gender, rights, welfare, rural sector, business environment, health and education.

AII are scored by in-country researchers following an evidence-based investigation methodology. Each indicator consists of three elements, a score, an explanatory comment and sources. Data is gathered through legal and scholarly reviews, interviews and reviews of media stories. Certain indicators have recently been removed, including the “in-law” indicators that indicated little change year to year. The focus is now primarily on the “in-practice” indicators that measure implementation. The scoring criteria for these indicators are provided for 100, 50 and 0. The researchers also have the option to score 75 or 25, whenever the higher or lower defined criteria do not accurately represent the research findings. The resultant data points are then subject to blind peer review by a panel that draws on the expertise of a mix of in-country and external experts.

The Basel AML Index is a ranking and risk assessment methodology that evaluates money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) threats to a country. It also measures how jurisdictions respond to these risks. It shows progress over time for 128 different jurisdictions and regions that have the available data. It is the only independent research-based index that ranks the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing and provides a simplified comparison of each country’s risk. The index allows for comparison between jurisdictions over time. The accompanying reports analyse trends – such as the causes of slow progress or regional analyses – that can be used to accompany the simple comparative indexes.

The 18 indicators used in the AML Index are categorised into five domains:

• Shortfalls in the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating of Financing of Terrorism (AML/CTF) framework
• Corruption and bribery
• Poor financial transparency and standards
• Poor public transparency and accountability
• Weak political rights and rule of law.

The Berggruen Governance Index is founded on the premise that the key to good governance is to achieve a good balance between democratic accountability (quality of democracy), state capacity (quality of governance) and public goods provision (quality of life). This “triangle” theory implies that all three of these dimensions need to be strong and resilient for good governance to exist.

The index examines the interaction between the three pillars in 145 countries between 2000 and 2024, giving each country a score between 0 and 100 based on their score against each primary dimension and three sub-dimensions, which can be compared against other countries.

The subdimensions of each are:

• democratic accountability: institutional accountability; electoral accountability; societal accountability
• state capacity: fiscal capacity; coordination capacity; delivery capacity
• public goods provision: social public goods; economic public goods; environmental public goods.

On the methodology see: Introducing the Berggruen Governance Index I: Conceptual and methodological framework.

The Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index (BTI) analyses and evaluates whether and how developing countries and countries in transition are steering social change toward democracy and a market economy. Guided by a standardised codebook, country experts assess the extent to which a total of 17 criteria have been met for each of the 137 countries. These experts ground the scores they provide in assessments that comprise the country reports, all of which are available online. A second country expert then reviews these assessments and scores. In a final step, consistency is ensured by subjecting each of the 49 individual scores given per country to regional and interregional calibration processes. Standardising the analytical process in this way makes targeted comparisons of reform policies possible.

The BTI aggregates the results of this comprehensive study of transformation processes and political management into two indices: The Status Index and the Governance Index. The Status Index, with its two analytic dimensions of political and economic transformation, identifies where each of the 137 countries stand on its path toward democracy under the rule of law and a social market economy. The Governance Index assesses the quality of political leadership with which transformation processes are steered. (BTI 2025)

Corruption related indicators include: “To what extent are public officeholders who abuse their positions prosecuted or penalised?” and “To what extent does the government successfully contain corruption?”

The CIVICUS Monitor provides an assessment of the conditions for civil society, as defined as the respect in policy and practice for freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression. It compiles these into civic ratings for 196 countries, categorising their civic space as either: open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed or closed. Qualitative and quantitative data are used for a country’s rating. The data sources used are reports produced by civil society, international indexes on civic space, country-specific reports produced by CIVICUS, periodic reports by CIVICUS Monitor research partners and input by the users of the website. An independent panel of experts then reviews the final score from these sources and may recommend an alternative rating to the one calculated.

The three international assessments of civic space used are: Freedom in the World Index, V-Dem, and the peaceful assembly indicator of the World Press Freedom Index. The CIVICUS Monitor research partners include Asia Democracy Network, Arab NGO Network for Development, European Civic Forum, West Africa Civil Society Institute, among others.

The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) scores and ranks countries based on how corrupt experts and business executives perceive a country’s public sector to be. It is a composite index, a combination of 13 surveys and assessments of corruption collected by 12 different organisations. Its intention is to convey a broad sense of the level of corruption in the public sector compared to the other countries featured.

The sources of information used for the CPI are based on data gathered during the previous 24 months. For a country to feature in the CPI, it needs at least three CPI data sources. Due to variances in the availability of underlying data around countries, the number of sources used therefore differs from country to country.

Since 2012 when the methodology was updated, the CPI uses the raw scores given to each country by different data providers and converts them to fit the CPI scale, from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). Each country is then given a rank reflecting its position relative to the other countries included in the index. As part of the updated methodology, CPI scores after 2012 can be compared from one year to the next.

As the most widely known indicator of corruption worldwide, the CPI is a powerful advocacy tool and sends a strong message to governments around the world. However, because only limited information can be gleaned from a single number, CPI scores and ranks should be used in conjunction with other assessments.

The Corruption Risk Forecast (CRF) is an analytical tool designed to track and evaluate long-term trends in national corruption risk. Developed in response to the limitations of perception-based indices, the CRF works in tandem with the Index for Public Integrity (IPI), which measures six key governance indicators: judicial independence, press freedom, administrative and budget transparency, online services, and e-citizenship.

By examining changes in these components over a ten-year period, the CRF identifies whether a country is improving or declining in its control of corruption. It includes a qualitative step to resolve inconsistent trends and updates for recent events. This approach allows for ex-ante and ex-post evaluations of anti-corruption measures, ensuring that tools are assessed within the appropriate national context.

The Economist Intelligence Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy in 167 countries and territories. It contains five categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.

Based on each country’s score, it is then classified as either: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime or authoritarian regime.

Each country is rated on a scale of 0 to 10, with full democracies having a score greater than 8 and authoritarian regimes a score less than or equal to 4.

Doing Business scores were constructed based on an annual survey of experts. The surveys assessed ease of doing business based on the legal frameworks and practice, and identified barriers that might provide incentives and opportunities for corruption.

The index was discontinued in 2021 following allegations of irregularities and data manipulation. As such it represents a useful case study of risks arising from over-reliance on any one source in formulating policy decisions.

The Enterprise Surveys measure firms’ perceptions of national business environments and experience with government processes, including informal payments and corruption.

They capture business perceptions on the biggest obstacles to enterprise growth, the relative importance of various constraints to increasing employment and productivity.

Among other things, the Enterprise Surveys measure the percentage of firms that expect to engage in bribery to “get things done” in general terms, and for different services (water, electricity, etc.). The percentage of contract value as a gift to secure a government contract is also asked. They give an estimate of the number of businesses that consider corruption to be a major constraint for doing business in the country. The results are comparable across countries and over time.

Enterprise Surveys are conducted by private contractors on behalf of the World Bank. The Enterprise Survey is answered by business owners and top managers, as well as company accountants and human resource managers.

Typically, 1,200 to 1,800 interviews are conducted in larger economies, 360 interviews are conducted in medium-sized economies, and, for smaller economies, 150 interviews take place.

European Quality of Government Index measures perceptions of and experiences with public sector corruption within the European Union. It covers all 27 EU member states, including the UK before Brexit and two accession countries.

The survey focuses primarily on public services, such as education, health and law enforcement, which are often administered by sub-national authorities. Questions focus not only on perceptions but also on citizens’ experience of services and their level of satisfaction, as well as on individual opinions regarding quality of public services, media, elections, social trust and the perceived and experienced meritocracy in the public and private sector.

Although the survey data can be used for national, as well as individual level analyses, the purpose of the survey is to aid scholars, practitioners and policymakers interested in going beyond comparisons and analyses at the national level, and to compare quality of governance across and within countries.

EuroPAM is an extension of the Public Accountability Mechanisms Initiative (PAM) by the World Bank. It is a database based on PAM indicators for financial disclosure, conflict of interest restrictions and freedom of information for 34 European countries.

It also adds a database on public procurement and updates the IDEA database on political financing. It scores each country on the five indicators:

• political financing,
• financial disclosure,
• conflict of interest,
• freedom of information
• and public procurement.

An overall score for each country is produced from 0 to 100.

Transparency International’s Exporting Corruption report assesses the enforcement efforts of 47 leading export countries in their implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

The most recent 2022 report assesses the period between 2018 and 2021. It ranks countries on a scale of active enforcement, moderate enforcement, limited enforcement, and little or no enforcement. It also presents the changes in enforcement levels, either improvement or decline.

Each country is scored with different weightings for across the pillars of commencing investigations, commencing cases, commencing major cases, concluding cases with sanctions, and for concluding major cases with substantial sanctions. Experts such as anti-corruption agency staff or lawyers provide the data for the status of cases. The enforcement ratings are then multiplied by their percentage share of world exports. Corporate or criminal lawyers who are experts in foreign bribery assist the final preparation of the report.

The FATF Mutual Evaluations are peer reviews on an ongoing basis of each FATF member to assess its compliance with and implementation of the FATF Recommendations. The FATF Recommendations are global standards against money laundering and terrorist financing, and include recommendations such as criminalising money laundering, application of targeted financial sanctions related to terrorism and terrorist financing, the monitoring of financial secrecy laws, among numerous others.

The mutual evaluations analyse each FATF country’s capacity to prevent criminal abuse of the financial system. The reviewed country is then assigned a level of compliance to the recommendations as either compliant, largely compliant, partially complaint or non-compliant. A mutual evaluation report provides an in-depth description and analysis of a country’s system for preventing criminal abuse of the financial system as well as focused recommendations for the country to further strengthen its system.

The Financial Secrecy Index ranks jurisdictions according to the opacity of their financial services industry and the scale of their offshore financial activities. The index is based on 20 indicators grouped around four broad dimensions of secrecy:

• ownership registration;
• legal entitytransparency;
• integrity of tax and financial regulation;
• international standards and cooperation.

The index is designed to help policymakers, researchers and advocates understand the extent and impact of global financial secrecy, tax havens/secrecy jurisdictions, and illicit financial flows.

The index uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to create a measure of each jurisdiction’s contribution to the global problem of financial secrecy. Qualitative data is based on laws, regulations, cooperation with information exchange processes and other verifiable data sources. These are used to prepare a secrecy score for each jurisdiction. Quantitative data is then used to create a global scale weighting for each jurisdiction based on its share of offshore financial services activity in the global total.

The Fragile States ranks 179 countries based on the pressures they face that impact their levels of fragility. A lower score for a country’s total indicator means the greater relative stability. The index assesses several indicators measuring a country’s stability, including:

• cohesion indicators: a country’s security apparatus, factionalised elites, group grievance
• economic indicators: economic decline, uneven development, human flight
• political indicators: state legitimacy, public services, human rights
• social indicators: demographics, refugees and internally displaced people, external intervention.

The index’s aim is to help inform projects in the field, by policymakers, field practitioners and local community .

The index is produced by collecting data via three methods: content analysis for each of the 12 indicators (and sub-indicators), quantitative datasets that are analysed from the UN, World Bank and World Health Organization, and a qualitative data review where a team of social science researchers review each country and provide an assessment of key events from that year. These three data streams are triangulated, and biases are checked, and final indicator scores are produced.

The Freedom in the World scores rates citizen access to political rights and civil liberties in 208 countries and territories, ranking them on a scale of not free, partly free and free. It also provides a trend analysis. It shows the countries that have had statistically significant changes year on year – between + 3 (more free) and – 3 (less free).

The Freedom in the World uses a two-tiered scoring system of scores and status, with countries awarded points for indicators on:

• electoral process,
• political pluralism and participation,
• the functioning of the government, freedom of expression and of belief, associational and organisational rights, the rule of law,
• and personal autonomy and individual rights.

The set of questions for each indicator is presented as a scoring checklist to a team of in-house and external analysts and expert advisers from the academic, think tank, and human rights communities. It then assigns each assessed country as free, partly free or not free depending on their final score.

The Executive Opinion Survey is the longest running (since 1979) and most extensive survey of its kind, capturing the opinions of business leaders around the world on a broad range of topics for which data sources are scarce or, frequently, non-existent on a global scale. Topics covered include the appetite for entrepreneurial risk, the extent of collaboration within a company or with external entities and the level of corruption.

The indicators derived from the survey were used in the calculation of the Global Competitiveness Index (2004-2020) and other World Economic Forum indexes and reports.

The Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) is a public opinion survey on perceptions and experiences of corruption. As a poll of the public, it provides an indicator of how corruption is viewed and experienced at national and regional levels and how efforts to curb corruption around the world are judged on the ground. It also provides a measure of people’s experience of corruption in the past year, in general and per institution.

The GCB can be used to identify public institutions and services that are seen as corrupt, to raise awareness to the impact of corruption on people in their everyday lives, and to better understand the political climate in a country as well as the integrity of national institutions.

Since 2017, the GCB has been conducted at a regional level with most recent surveys on the African region (2015-2019), Pacific region (2021), Asian region (2020), and European Union (2021). The move from a global survey to regional ones was to take a deeper look at the nuances of public perceptions and experiences within different regions.

The Global Corruption Index measures the state of corruption and white-collar crimes in 196 countries and territories. They are ranked on 42 variables from very low risk (0) to very high risk (100).

According to the website, the index can be used to conduct initial risk mappings as part of a company’s compliance.

The index uses four indicators to measure corruption:

• the ratification of key conventions,
• level of perceived corruption,
• reported experience of public and private corruption by citizens and the private sector, and
• a selection of country characteristics closely linked to corruption.

It also measures four indicators under prevention mechanisms: citizens voice and transparency, government functioning and effectiveness, legal context, and political context.

The Global Organized Crime Index assesses the level of organised crime and resilience to organised criminal activity within a country. It ranks all UN member states through a dataset modelled on the scope, scale and impact of 10 criminal markets; the structure and influence of four types of criminal actors; and countries’ resilience to organised crime.

The index website includes country summaries with background information on each country’s score and key trends.

The index is produced through an initial literature review, data collection on criminality and resilience, two rounds of scoring, a regional expert group verification and an internal calibration.

The criminality indicators assess the type of criminal actors’ prevalence in each country (mafia style groups, criminal networks, foreign actors, etc.) and the type of criminal markets (human trafficking, flora crimes, cocaine trade, etc.).

The resilience indicator then assesses the different measures taken by each UN country to prevent organised crime (political leadership and governance, government transparency and accountability, law enforcement, etc.).

Countries can score between 1 and 10. For the criminality index, 1 means there is no to little influence from criminality, and 10 is that there is a severe influence from criminality. For the resilience index: 1 is that there is no or extremely ineffective resilience to organised crime and 10 is for highly effective resilience.

The Global Right to Information Rating (RTI) rating measures the quality of the world’s access to information laws. It comparatively assesses the strength of legal frameworks for the right to information, using 61 indicators that each correspond to a particular feature of a good RTI regime.

The indicators are divided into seven categories:

• right of access;
• scope;
• requesting procedures;
• exceptions and refusals;
• appeals;
• sanctions and protections; and
• promotional measures.

Each country is scored out of 150 points.

The Global State of Democracy Indices (GSoD Indices) measure the democratic performance of 174 countries, with countries categorised into either democracies, hybrid or authoritarian regimes.

Its objectives are to assess the global state of democracy through analysing trends and identifying opportunities for improving democracy.

It measures the five following attributes associated with democracy:

• representative government (free and equal access to political power)
• fundamental rights (individual liberties and resources)
• checks on government (effective control of executive power)
• impartial administration (fair and predictable public administration)
• participatory engagement (instruments for and realisation of political involvement)

They are based on 165 individual indicators devised by various scholars and organisations using different types of sources: expert surveys, standards-based coding by research groups and analysts, observational data and composite measures. The Varieties of Democracy project contributes almost half of the indicators used in the Global State of Democracies Indices. There are 24 data sources in all (Idea 2025).

The most relevant indicator that affects levels of corruption in a country is checks on government. This attribute assesses the strength of horizontal accountability in a country and measures the following sub-attributes:

• effective parliament (the extent to which legislature oversees the executive),
• judicial independence (the extent to which courts are not subject to undue influence from branches of the government) and
• media integrity (the extent to which the media landscape offers critical coverage of political issues)

The Government Defence Integrity Index (GDI) was previously known as the Government Defence Anticorruption Index and it was first published in 2013 and then in 2015. TI changed the name to GDI for the 2020 iteration and is collecting data for a 2025 index using the same methodology as before.

The GDI scores countries from A (the best) to F (the worst) based on 77 questions in five risk areas:

• political risk,
• financial risk,
• personnel risk,
• operations risk, and
• procurement risk.

An expert assessor using a standard set of questions and model answers conducts evaluations. Up to three peer reviewers and the TI national chapter then independently review this. Governments are also invited to conduct a review of the assessment and submit additional information. Findings are highly disaggregated and sources of information to justify the score are documented.

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) measures the level of good governance in 54 African countries across four categories:

• security and rule of law;
• participation, rights and inclusion;
• foundations for economic opportunity;
• and human development.

The security and rule of law category contains several indicators on accountability, transparency and corruption.

The index measures more than 90 indicators on a scale from 0 to 100, with 100 being the best possible score. The index’s dataset is updated every year, implying retrospective revision of the scores from previous years. The is data collected from 35 independent data sources, including official data, expert assessments and opinion surveys.

The Index of Public Integrity (IPI) is a composite index that uses indirect objective measures (proxies) in a conscious attempt to present an actionable corruption measurement methodology.

• The IPI provides a measure of a country’s capacity to control corruption and enforce integrity, broadly understood as a balance between constraints (legal + normative) vs resources (power discretion + material resources). The single composite indicator is based on an assessment of six components: budget transparency,
• administrative
• transparency,
• online services,
• judicial independence,
• e-citizenship, and
• freedom of the press.

Each final component score is normalised to a range between 1 and 10. The most recent edition from 2021 covered 114 countries in total.

Although it has been designed to ensure longevity by using data produced as part of a time series, the IPI relies on data being collected by other organisations. This means any significant changes to the underlying indicators could be problematic in future. Indeed, some of the indicators are not produced annually, and a few of the underlying indicators have changed over time.

The IPI’s definition of e-citizenship is based on the percentage of fixed broadband subscriptions, internet users and Facebook users. This is considered by some as an over-simplified understanding of the impact of technology on public integrity and that the real relationship between the two is more nuanced than this.

Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia is a regional outreach programme of the OECD Working Group on Bribery. Under the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan its country monitoring reports aim to assess participating countries’ compliance with a range of international anti-corruption standards.

The participating countries include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

The process is similar to the approach taken by GRECO and MESICIC, and civil society input is likewise typically reflected. ACN fifth round of monitoring was launched in 2022 with baseline reports coming available end of 2024.

NIS Assessments examine key ‘pillars’ for countering corruption in a country’s formal governance system. They aim to examine both the formal framework of each pillar and the actual institutional practice. The analysis highlights discrepancies between the formal provisions and reality on the ground, with recommendations for improvement.

The analyses are typically undertaken via a consultative approach, involving the key anti-corruption agents in government, civil society, the business community and other sectors.

The Open Budget Survey assesses the public availability of budget information and other budgeting practices that contribute to an accountable and responsive public finance system. The 2023 survey included 125 countries.

The majority of the survey questions assess what occurs in practice. The survey assesses the contents and timely release of eight key budget documents that all countries should issue at different points in the budget process, according to generally accepted good practice criteria for public financial management.

The Open Budget Survey covers additional topics of relevance to public participation and trust including the extent to which the public can participate during each phase of the budget process, factors related to legislative strength and the capacity and independence of formal oversight institutions. Survey results are based on 240 questions that remain the same for each country. The survey is conducted by researchers typically based in the respective country. Almost all of the researchers come from civil society organisations (most of whom have a significant focus on budget issues) or academic institutions.

Scored questions: 145 of the questions are scored and include 109 questions that assess the public availability of budget information, 18 questions that assess opportunities for the public to participate in the budget process, and 18 questions that assess the role of the legislature and the supreme audit institution.

Unscored questions: the 95 unscored questions help to complete the OBS research by collecting background information on key budget documents and explore different characteristics of a country’s public finance management.

The Open Budget Survey is also used to create the Open Budget Index (OBI). Each country is given a score between 0 and 100 that determines its ranking on the Open Budget Index.

The Open Data Inventory evaluates the openness of data provided on websites maintained by national statistical offices (NSOs) and any government website accessible from this.

Countries are scored by how complete and open an NSO’s data offerings are. In its most recent edition, it assessed 195 countries, ranking them out of 100 for overall coverage and openness of their data.

It aims to identify gaps and promote open data policies. This is important when assessing government accountability and transparency. It reviews published statistics in over 20 categories, grouped under social, economic, financial and environmental statistics. For example, data on government finance is collected with indicators on revenue and expenditure and how open the data on NSO websites are. It assesses the openness of data through the Open Data Charter, that “open data should be machine readable in non-proprietary formats, accompanied by descriptive metadata and export options that allow customisation and bulk download, and should be free to be used and reused for any purpose without limitations other than acknowledgement of the original source” (Open Data Watch).

The World Press Freedom Index compares the level of press freedom in 180 countries and territories. Press freedom is defined as “the ability of journalists as individuals and collectives to select, produce, and disseminate news in the public interest independent of political, economic, legal, and social interference and in the absence of threats to their physical and mental safety”. The scores range between 0 and 100, with 100 being the highest level of press freedom and 0 being the lowest.

The index is calculated through a quantitative tally of abuses against journalists in connection to their work and against media outlets, and a qualitative analysis of the situation based on the responses of experts in response to a questionnaire. Each score is evaluated using five contextual indicators: political context, legal framework economic context, sociocultural context and safety.

SIGMA has been reviewing performance against the Principles of Public Administration since 2015 in EU Enlargement and European Neighbourhood countries: Albania, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey, and elsewhere, per request. These reviews analysed how the countries were performing in the public administration reform area, set baseline values for indicators and suggested detailed and sequenced reform recommendations. The assessment approach is described in the Methodological Framework for the Principles of Public Administration.

In 2021 Sigma launched a data portal that displays data collected, analysed and validated through its monitoring work.

The PEFA framework assesses the strengths and weaknesses of a country’s public financial management (PFM) system through 7 pillars of performance:

• Budget reliability
• Transparency of public finances
• Management of assets and liabilities
• Policy-based fiscal strategy and budgeting
• Accounting and reporting
• Predictability and control in budget execution
• External scrutiny and audit

The assessments consider 31 specific indicators disaggregated into 94 dimensions that focus on key measurable aspects of the PFM system. The database contains a large number of countries around the world but not all are recent or updated regularly. The methodology was considerably revised in 2016, however, measures (parallel assessments according to both old and new frameworks) are typically undertaken to permit comparisons.

The PEFA Secretariat is housed in the World Bank, Washington DC, and is legally operating as a part of the Bank.

The Public Integrity Indicators measure the integrity systems in OECD countries, and its first dataset has been published for all 38 OECD member states and two adherents to the OECD Recommendation on Public Integrity (Argentina and Peru), and one OECD key partner (Brazil) countries.

The indicators are intended to be used by governments to help inform policies.

There are six sets of indicators:

• Quality of anti-corruption and integrity strategic framework (Data published in 2021, updated in 2023)
• Accountability of public policy making (Data published in 2022)
• Effectiveness of internal control and risk management (Data published in 2023)
• Integrity and effectiveness of the justice system (Scheduled for 2025)
• Strength of external oversight and control (Scheduled for 2025)
• Meritocracy of the public sector (Scheduled for 2026)

Each country is evaluated on a scale of 0 to 100. The indicators were developed by a Task Force from the Working Party of Senior Public Integrity Officials to measure the implementation of the OECD Recommendation on the Council of Public Integrity. The indicators are based on primary data sources and validated by national governments.

Resource Governance Index is one of the tools offered by NGRI. It is based on expert assessments of policies and practices that authorities employ to govern their countries’ oil, gas and mining industries, undertaken in 2017 and repeated in 2021 covering 18 countries. It is unclear when and whether it will be repeated. The index is comprised of three components:

• value realisation,
• revenue
• management,
• and enabling environment.

The World Justice Project’s (WJP) Rule of Law Index is a quantitative tool that measures the rule of law, through consultation with academics, practitioners and community leaders. The survey included 142 countries in 2024. It ranks eight factors through a general population poll and a qualified respondents’ questionnaire. Each country is assigned a score between 0 and 1, with 1 being the strongest adherence to the rule of law.

The index is comprised of eight pillars:

• constraints on government powers,
• absence of corruption,
• open government,
• fundamental rights,
• order and security,
• regulatory enforcement,
• civil justice,
• criminal justice.

Pillar 2 measures the absence of corruption in governance agencies. It considers three forms of corruption: bribery, improper influence by public or private interests, and misappropriation of public funds or other resources. These three forms are examined with respect to four components:

• 2.1 government officials in the executive branch do not use public office for private gain
• 2.2 government officials in the judicial branch do not use public office for private gain
• 2.3 government officials in the police and the military do not use public office for private gain
• 2.4 government officials in the legislature do not use public office for private gain

Each of these components is composed of several sub-components, each with underlying indicators.

The Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI)explores how governments in 41 EU and OECD countries adhere to the principles of sustainable development across three pillars (sustainable policies, robust democracy and good governance).

These three pillars are broken down into six dimensions

• economic policies,
• social policies,
• environmental policies,
• quality of democracy,
• executive capacity and
• executive accountability

These are further broken down into 32 subdimensions, one of which is “corruption prevention”.

The SGI relies on a combination of qualitative assessments by country experts and quantitative data drawn from official sources of administrative data. To aggregate 152 indicators into composite indexes, the quantitative indicators (which use varying scales and units of measurement) are standardised, with scores ranging from 1 (worst) to 10 (best).

Modelled on the PEFA framework, TADAT is designed as the revenue counterpart to the public financial management assessments. It aims to provide an objective assessment of the health of key components of a country’s system of tax administration. The framework contains nine key performance outcome areas that cover most tax administration functions, processes and institutions:

• Integrity of the registered taxpayer base
• Assessment of risk
• Support of voluntary compliance
• Filing of returns
• Payment of obligations
• Accuracy of reporting
• Tax dispute resolution
• Efficiency of tax administration
• Accountability and transparency

The assessment of these performance outcome areas is based on 55 measurement dimensions along 32 indicators. TADAT focuses on the performance of the major national taxes: corporate income tax (CIT), personal income tax (PIT), value added tax (VAT) (or its indirect tax equivalent such as sales tax), excise duties, and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) amounts withheld by employers (which, strictly speaking, are remittances of PIT). Social security contributions (SSCs) may also be included in assessments where SSCs are a major source of government revenue and are collected by the tax administration, as is the case in many European countries.

Trained assessors will apply the TADAT methodology. They will be guided by approved and standardised terms of reference and standards set out in the TADAT Field Guide. The TADAT Secretariat is based at the IMF.

The TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix measures the business bribery risk in 194 countries and territories. Each country risk score is determined by four domains:

• business interactions with government,
• anti-bribery deterrence and enforcement,
• government and civil service transparency,
• capacity for civil society oversight.

These are displayed on a global map, where countries are ranked between very low bribery risk, to very high bribery risk alongside their respective scores in each domain. Each domain is composed from public datasets, each variable is scaled to a normal distribution and a score is then calculated from the average of these. The datasets include E-Government Development Index, V-Dem, Enterprise Surveys, Rule of Law Index, among others.

The Transparency in Corporate Reporting studies evaluate the transparency of corporate reporting of several segments of the global business sector according to the same methodology.

Reports include:

• 2016, 2014: Assessing emerging market multinationals
• 2014, 2012: Assessing the world’s largest companies
• 2015: Assessing the World’s Largest Telecommunications Companies

The T-index assesses transparency in 143 countries and defines transparency as “the available and accessible (cost free) minimal public information required to deter corruption and enable public accountability in a society” (ERCAS).

The index contains two sets of indicators, one for de jure transparency and one on de facto transparency.

Each country’s score represents the percentage to which the target of “anti-corruption transparency” has been fulfilled. It disaggregated components can be used as a diagnostic tool for international donors, and practitioners and activists in the field of government transparency.

For the de jure index, the implementation of anticorruption international agreements and treaties are assessed, including: UNCAC ratification, membership to Open Government Partnership, Freedom of Information in national legislation, among others. It uses publicly available websites to collect this information. For the de facto components a questionnaire is used and sent to experts. On the methodology see here.

Part of the UNCAC Implementation Review Mechanism, Country Reports are peer reviews completed by two member states.

The first cycle, initiated in 2010, which assesses chapters III and IV of the Convention on criminalization and law enforcement and international cooperation.

The second cycle, started in 2015, which covers chapters II and V of the Convention on preventive measures and asset recovery.

The review may, with the approval of the country under review, include information provided by civil society organisations. In numerous countries, civil society organisations have produced shadow reports. Such reports should be sought and reviewed in connection with the country Self-Assessments where publicly available.

The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) indices measure democracy, distinguishing between five different principles of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative and egalitarian in 202 countries. Its disaggregated dataset reflects the complexity of democracy as a system that goes beyond the simple presence of elections.

There are several V-Dem indexes that pertain to corruption directly:

• 3.4.1.2 executive bribery and corrupt exchanges
• 3.4.1.3 executive embezzlement and theft
• 3.4.1.4 public sector corrupt exchanges
• 3.5.1.6 legislature corrupt activities
• 3.7.0.6 judicial corruption decision
• 3.11.0.10 media corrupt
• 5.7.1 political corruption index
• 5.7.2 executive corruption index
• 5.7.3 public sector corruption index

V-Dem uses a pool of more than 3,700 country experts, with five selected per country and data collected via online surveys. The expert data is coded with a measurement model to account for uncertainty about estimates and potential biases.

When the results are collected, the V-Dem model algorithmically estimates the degree to which an expert is reliable relative to other experts, providing users with the best estimate of the final value.

The Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) is intended to capture the quality of a country’s policies and institutional arrangements.

The CPIA measures the extent to which a country’s policy and institutional framework supports sustainable growth and poverty reduction, and consequently the effective use of development assistance.

The CPIA consists of 16 criteria – among which are transparency, accountability and corruption in the public sector – grouped into four equally weighted clusters:

• economic management,
• structural policies,
• policies for social inclusion and equity, public sector management and institutions.

For each of the 16 criteria, countries are rated on a scale of 1 (low) to 6 (high). The scores depend on the level of performance in a given year assessed against the criteria, rather than on changes in performance compared to the previous year.

Data is collected through surveys of World Bank country experts, using quantitative and qualitative country data to guide ratings. The process of preparing the ratings involves two phases: (1) the benchmarking phase, in which a small, representative, sample of countries is rated in an intensive bank-wide process; and (2) a second phase, in which the remaining countries are rated using the derived benchmark ratings as guideposts.

The World Values Survey (WVS) started in 1981 and completed its seventh wave in 2022, from 2017 to 2022. The most recent 8th wave started in January 2024.and aims to expand its coverage from 70 countries to 80.

It aims to measure changing values and their impact on social and political life. It is the largest non-commercial, cross-national, time series investigation of human beliefs and values ever assembled, currently including interviews with almost 400,000 respondents.

As well as general questions on interpersonal trust and trust in institutions, there are also specific questions related to corruption.

It measures views on corruption through questions on bribery for public services. It also asks respondents for their opinions on which groups of people are most involved in corrupt acts: state authorities, business executives, local authorities, civil service providers, and/or journalists and media.

The WVS consists of nationally representative surveys using a common questionnaire. Its most recent seventh wave released data for 59 countries and territories.

Samples are drawn from the entire population of 18 years and older. The minimum sample is 1,200. The mode of data collection for WVS surveys is face-to-face interviewing with other modes (e.g., telephone, mail, internet) only used under very exceptional circumstances.

The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) provide an assessment of the quality of six broad dimensions of governance:

• voice and accountability;
• political stability and absence of violence;
• government effectiveness;
• regulatory quality;
• rule of law; and
• control of corruption.

The indicators are reported in two ways: (1) in their score, ranging from -2.5 to 2.5, and (2) in percentile rank terms from 0 to 100, with higher values corresponding to better outcomes.

The WGI present aggregate and individual governance indicators over 200 economies over the period 1996–2023 and can be used to observe trends over longer periods of time.

The WGI are composite governance indicators based on 30 underlying data sources (from survey institutes, think-tanks, non-governmental organisations, international organisations and private sector firms). These data sources are rescaled and combined to create six aggregate indicators using a statistical methodology known as the unobserved components model. The results include margins of error, corresponding to 90% confidence intervals.

The indicator on control of corruption measures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain (petty and grand forms of corruption) and state capture. On voice and accountability, the indicator captures perceptions on the extent to which citizens can participate in selecting their government, freedom of expression, freedom of association and a free media, and can be particularly useful when assessing vertical accountability.