Georgia ranks 68th in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2010, published on October 26. Georgia’s score is 3.8 on a scale from 10 (very clean) to 0 (highly corrupt). The CPI measures the degree to which public sector corruption is perceived to exist in 178 countries around the world, it is compiled and published by our TI head office in Berlin.

In 2009, Georgia came in 66th, with a score of 4.1. However, the deterioration of the score is not significant.

What Georgia's 2010 score clearly shows is that corruption remains to be an issue that needs to be addressed, even if the government at times disputes this fact.

Mapping perceived corruption

The key insight that the CPI provides is a snapshot of corruption worldwide today.
It allows for a comparison of the situation in Georgia with countries in South Eastern Europe and (non-EU) Eastern Europe. If we compare Georgia to this region, it ranks behind Turkey (global rank: 56, score of 4.4), Croatia and Macedonia (both rank 62, with a score of 4.1) – all three countries are candidates for EU membership.

Georgia ranks ahead of Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, and Bosnia & Herzegovina, all potential candidates for EU membership– a status that has not been offered to Georgia.

But this does not mean that no EU member countries have severe problems with corruption: Italy ranks 67th (3.9), one place a head of Georgia. Romania (rank 69, score: 3.7), Bulgaria (73rd; 3.6) and Greece (78th; 3.5) show higher levels of perceived corruption than Georgia.

In a number of developed countries that were severely affected by the financial crisis, the CPI indicates that there has been a significant loss of confidence in the public sector. This is reflected the fairly poor results of countries including the Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Hungary and the United States.

Looking at Georgia's neighborhood, Georgia is also scoring far higher than its neighbors, with the exception of Turkey: Armenia is 123rd with a score of 2.6, Azerbaijan 134th (2.4) and Russia 154th (2.1) in the global ranking.

So does the deterioration of Georgia's score by .3 points compared to 2009 mean that perceived corruption has increased in Georgia in the past year?

The deterioration in Georgia's score is not substantial, so we cannot derive this conclusion from the CPI. Given its methodology, the CPI is not a tool that is suitable for analyzing trends or for monitoring changes in the perceived levels of corruption over time for all countries. The reason for this is that in the past years, TI has changed the methodology of the CPI in order to improve the index. In addition, the sources used to create the rating for a specific country might have changed over the years; Each year, some countries are added to the index, while others are dropped due to a lack of enough sources for a specific country or territory.

We have more detailed information about the methodology behind the CPI in our Frequently Asked Questions.

If you have questions about the CPI, please post them here and we will try to answer them here. We are also interested in your views: how do you read the results of the CPI? Please share your comments with us!