Bhutan’s progress in combating corruption has improved in 2020 compared to 2019. The country is ranked 24th least corrupt country out of 180 countries and territories. Bhutan was ranked 25th in 2019. This is as per Transparency International, a German non-governmental organisation working to combat global corruption.
Bhutan is listed among the three countries who improved their Corruption Perceptions Index scores over the past 10 years.
Bhutan scored 68 out of 100 in 2020, five up from 63 in 2012. Estonia and Austria are the other countries whose CPI scores improved by 11 and seven respectively.
A score of 100 indicates that a country is very clean and zero indicates that a country is highly corrupt. The country has consistently maintained its score at 68 since 2018.
And more than 52 per cent of the countries saw a significant reduction in their scores.
New Zealand and Denmark are the top-ranked countries with a score of 88 each. At the bottom are South Sudan and Somalia each scoring 12 points out of 100.
Bhutan is also ranked the sixth least corrupt country in the Asia Pacific region since 2012.
As countries recover from the pandemic, Transparency International is calling for enhanced anti-corruption efforts. It is recommending countries to mainstream anti-corruption policies in COVID-19 related plans and programmes, strengthen institutions to enable real-time monitoring and publish relevant data and guarantee access to ensure fair and equitable policy responses.
Phub Gyem
