By Thor Wilkens, WELL

Denmark is the fourth least corrupt country in the world. This is the result of the Corruption Perceptions Index 2005 from the NGO Transparency International. In spite of the good result, Denmark might slide downwards on the list next year because the index has been done in the spring before the cases in the Danish Immigrations Service, in the heating, water and sanitation cartels and the Oil For Food Programme:

- If and when these cases show corruption, Denmarks place in the CPI Index will probably be less good next year, says Torben Ishøy from the Danish division of Transparency International.

According to the list, Iceland is the least corrupt of all countries, number two is Finland and number three is New Zealand.

Little improvement in new EU-countries
Other European states are not doing so well. Poland, Czech Republic and Rumania are only showing little or no improvement compared to last years list. More than two thirds of the countries in the list score less than five points in the list (Ten is least corrupt, zero is totally corrupt) which Transparency International finds worrying. Countries with a lot of growth like China and Russia have a lot of corruption with placings as number 78 and 126.

Most corruption in poor countries
The most corrupt countries in the world are Tchad and Bangladesh. This is not a coincidence as these countries are also very poor, says Torben Ishøy. He thinks that Danish politicians should focus on the link between corruption and poverty when giving development-aid.

It pays to avoid corruption
Recent research shows that it pays for a country not to be corrupt; if a country were to improve its score in the Corruption Perceptions Index by 1 point (out of 10) foreign direct investment
would increase by 15 percent.

WELL and TI are hosting a conference on corruption i December 2005. Read all about the event here.

Sources: Børsen, 19th October 2005 and icgg.org.