Good governance – Combating corruption

Taken from the official translation of the German Sustainable Development Strategy

The CPI is a composite indicator that is based on various expert and corporate surveys regarding the perception of corruption in the public sector. Depending on the survey, underlying definitions of corruption may differ, and the sources used for calculations may change over time. The index includes all countries for which at least three selected surveys are available. As such, the CPI is the most comprehensive synoptic study on perceived public sector corruption.

In its analysis of the CPI, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission points out that interpretation of the findings should take into account whether a change is statistically significant and that the outcomes in this indicator should be treated with caution even where this is the case.

Germany’s score improved from 79 in 2012 to 80 in 2019. That is one point down from its score in 2017, which leaves Germany ranked in tenth place on the index. In this case, the change compared with 2012 cannot be considered statistically significant (at a significance level of 5%).

The Federal Statistical Office also gathers information on corruption as part of its satisfaction survey on public services. According to that survey, 4.7% of the population formed the impression during their interaction with public institutions in 2019 that public-service employees were susceptible to corruption. In the corresponding survey of companies, 4.0% of businesses had the impression that public-service employees were open to corruption.

The Police Crime Statistics record all criminal matters that become known to the police. In 2019, these included 913 cases of corruptibility, bribery, or acceptance or granting of advantages in the public sector. The Police Crime Statistics also list cases of corruptibility and bribery in commercial practice as well as what are referred to as offences associated with corruption, such as fraud and breach of trust, falsification of documents, anti-competitive agreements during tendering procedures, obstruction of justice, false certification by officials and breach of official secrecy.

Turning to German development cooperation, a total of 43 of the 85 partner countries evaluated in the CPI improved in 2019 compared with 2012. The number of partner countries developing in a positive direction increased in each year of the reporting period until 2016. It declined slightly in 2017 and stagnated thereafter. However, 20 partner countries involved in German development cooperation showed a statistically significant improvement (at a significance level of 5%) in 2019 over 2012.

For comparison, six partner countries reported a significant improvement in 2014.

This summary table illustrates the evaluations of the indicator by status of previous years. This shows whether the weather symbol for an indicator has been stable or rather volatile in the past years. (Evaluations from the indicator report 2021)

Time series 1

Indicator	16.3.a Corruption Perceptions Index in Germany
Target	Improvement by 2030, compared to 2012
Year	2017	2018	2019
Evaluation

Time series 2

Indicator	16.3.b Corruption Perceptions Index in partner countries of German development cooperation
Target	Improvement by 2030, compared to 2012
Year	2018	2019
Evaluation