Ukraine has improved its position in the 2020 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranking, the leading global indicator of public sector corruption annually published by Transparency International, the civil society organization.
Released on Jan. 28, the new ranking indicates some modest progress in Ukraine’s fight against corruption.
Ukraine ranks 117th out of 180 countries, an improvement compared to its 126th spot in the previous, 2019 CPI ranking.
However, while Ukraine improved significantly against other countries, the actual evaluation of its anti-corruption policies improved only by three points over the year. Now Ukraine has 33 points out of the maximum 100.
Still, this improvement does not push Ukraine much closer to the most successful and prosperous countries in the ranking.
New Zealand and Denmark traditionally top the list. In 2020, the two added one point each and now have 88 points.
Syria (14 points), Somalia (12 points), and South Sudan (12 points) — countries with the long-lasting unstable political situation, military conflicts, and uneven control of the government over the territory — are at the bottom of the ranking.
Next to Ukraine are Egypt, Africa’s Eswatini (Swaziland), Nepal, Sierra Leone, and Zambia — all of these countries also scored 33 points as Ukraine did in CPI 2020.
Moldova is the closest neighbor with 34 points. And Russia with 30 points and 129th place remains the only country that is behind Ukraine among its neighbors.
Ukraine’s newly-gained three points are not considered a statistically significant result. In fact, Ukraine’s branch of the organization says “there is nothing to celebrate.”
The CPI should be considered from a wider perspective, taking into account at least several years of how a country performs in the index, according to Transparency International.
Thus, the CPI 2020 reflects the things that happened during the last two years at least. At the same time, events and changes of the last six months or so were not considered when this year’s index was calculated.
This is why the ongoing Constitutional Court crisis — that first hit Ukraine in October last year destroying the country’s anti-corruption reform — has not influenced Ukraine’s result in the ranking. However, it will definitely impact next year’s assessment, according to Transparency International.
Among the reforms that raised Ukraine’s score were: legislation on the right to exercise covert investigative actions independently for Ukraine’s National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU), restored liability for illicit enrichment, and strengthened protection of whistleblowers are among the positive changes that impacted Ukraine’s score, according to Transparency International.
Ironically, some of these reforms were lately debunked or blocked. For instance, NABU still can’t exercise its right to independently wiretap suspects because of obstruction by the State Security Service. And the liability for illicit enrichment, restored in 2019, was again canceled and partly restored in late 2020.
The organization also recognized the positive impact of small-scale privatization and the test launch of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention electronic register of political parties’ accountability.
“Launch of the High Anti-Corruption Court with appropriate jurisdiction, a reboot of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention and the “turbo mode” of the Verkhovna Rada of the IX convocation are the things that influenced our results in the CPI 2020,” Transparency International said in a statement.
However, the organization made it clear it had noticed “worrisome developments that will be definitely taken into consideration in the next CPI assessment.”
Transparency International called on Ukraine to finalize the judicial reform, unblock large-scale privatization of state facilities, and ensure the independence of the anti-corruption authorities.
