In turn, Cape Verde is the best-ranked CPLP country and Equatorial Guinea has the worst ranking in the 2024 CPI, published by the non-governmental organization Transparency International.
According to the report – in which 180 countries were evaluated and subsequently classified between 0 (perceived as very corrupt) and 100 points (very transparent) –, Cape Verde, with 62 points, is the best-ranked CPLP nation, followed by Portugal, with 57 points.
In turn, the remaining nations received negative rankings: São Tomé and Príncipe (45), Timor-Leste (44), Brazil (34), Angola (32), Mozambique (25), Guinea-Bissau (21) and Equatorial Guinea (13).
In general, "more than two-thirds of the countries [analyzed] had a score below 50 out of 100", highlighted Transparency International, in a statement.
"Full democracies have an average CPI of 73, while flawed democracies have an average of 47 and non-democratic regimes only 33", explained, also mentioning that the global average of the index remained unchanged this year, at 43.
Thus, countries in conflict or with highly restricted freedoms and weak democratic institutions occupy the last places in the index.
South Sudan (8), Somalia (9) and Venezuela (10) occupy the last three places. Syria (12), Equatorial Guinea (13), Eritrea (13), Libya (13), Yemen (13), Nicaragua (14), Sudan (15) and North Korea (15) complete the list of countries with the worst classification, he listed.
According to the research, corruption in North Africa and the Middle East is linked to authoritarianism, despite calls for reform, and in sub-Saharan Africa, anti-corruption measures are weak and hamper the fight for climate action. However, "there are African countries that have invested in the fight against corruption and made notable progress", the document adds.
According to the entity, corruption and the climate crisis are "strongly interconnected" phenomena and "to effectively combat the climate crisis, corruption must be placed at the center of the global debate".
"While billions of people around the world face the daily consequences of climate change, resources for adaptation and mitigation remain woefully inadequate. Corruption intensifies these challenges, posing additional threats to vulnerable communities", it stressed.
For example, "the lack of adequate transparency and accountability mechanisms increases the risk of climate funds being misused or diverted", it said.
Thus, favouring the interests of narrow groups, to the detriment of the common good, has prevented the "adoption of ambitious policies and measures needed to combat climate change", he indicated.
"The corruption crisis is a huge obstacle to solving the climate crisis", he lamented.
"As corruption grows in scale and complexity, more than two-thirds of countries now rank below the midpoint [50] of Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) – with huge and potentially devastating implications for global climate action", he reiterated.
Another issue is that corruption can deepen the marginalisation of vulnerable populations who disproportionately suffer the negative effects of climate change, he stressed.
"Without robust national measures to combat corruption, the effectiveness of global climate agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, remains at risk, further compromising efforts to combat the climate crisis", he said.
"To improve the environmental and social outcomes of climate action, it is essential to ensure that climate initiatives are designed and implemented in an inclusive manner, based on public participation," he advised.
Transparency International is a global movement based in Berlin that wants "a world free from corruption," he explained.
