Some African nations 'very slow' over corruption

Transparency has just published its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2014. The table is a gauge of corruption by governments, police, judiciary, political parties and bureaucracies.

DW: Three African countries - South Sudan, Sudan and Somalia - are among the five worst offenders at the bottom of this league table. Why?

Chantal Uwimana : Periods of conflict, serious corruption, institutional or political instability, and the systems are weakened by those who should be upholding them; the systems are distracted by many things. It is therefore not surprising that countries like Somalia, which have been through relatively long periods of instability - whatever their nature - are seen or perceived as having high levels of corruption.

Which countries in Africa have done better this year than last year?

Compared to last year, we have Ivory Coast and Mali, but we have to bear in mind that we are covering a period of two years ending in June 2014. We are now in December, so there might be some events in the public's mind that happened in those countries which we did not take into consideration.

When we say that they have improved, what do we mean by that?

The data that is taken into account and put together in the CPI looks at a number of different things. For Ivory Coast, we noted that last year legislation was passed indicating a strong commitment to fight corruption. That was taken into account. If we look from one year to the next, it gives a kind of instant picture but when you look back over a period of years you realize that progress in some countries across Africa is very slow.

What evidence do you have to back your findings? How can you be sure that they are accurate?

The way these indices are put together involves building on data sources provided by reputable institutions such as the World Bank, World Economic Forum, African Development Bank. So it is not as if we are finding out things that are completely new. We are just putting information available from different sources together and making a kind of composite index out of it.

Those sources look at issues such as freedom of information, they look at data about doing business in a country, what are the systems, the laws, the practices. So it is not as if we went round doing a survey ourselves and then came out with the findings. We just put information that is available in one place, so we can say how one country is performing relative to the others.

Chantal Uwimana is the regional director for sub-Saharan Africa at Transparency International.

Interview: Asumpta Lattus