30 Most Corrupt Countries in the World Heading into 2024

Ramish Cheema
10 min read

In this piece, we will take a look at the 30 most corrupt countries in the world heading into 2024. If you want to skip our analysis of corruption and its impact on economic output and societal well being, then take a look at 5 Most Corrupt Countries in the World Heading into 2024.

Corruption is perhaps one of the most widely despised practices in most countries, at least among people who are not corrupt. Traditionally, corruption is thought to cover illicit uses of a position for personal benefits, whether the position is in the corporate or the public sector. However, most of the debate around corruption is focused on the public sector, due to the fact that it is significantly larger than the private sector and because it uses taxpayers' funds to function.

According to research, corruption revolves around a variety of practices such as embezzlement, bribery, fraud, extortion, and favoritism. Other kinds of corruption include influence peddling, parochialism, and graft. A list of corrupt practices as defined by Corruption Control Consultants shows that the four Ps of corruption revolve around Power, Preference, Payment, and Privilege. As you might have guessed, at the root of all these categories is money. While bribery typically involves paying government officials to solicit favors from them that would otherwise be unavailable, other kinds of corruption such as cronyism and influence peddling often involve control over resources or government functions with the end goal of resource extraction and monetary benefit.

One of the most controversial debates, particularly in corrupt countries, is whether corruption really does hamper economic growth. The side of the honest people points out that in a corrupt society, resources are not distributed effectively and the best ideas are not brought forward, which naturally makes economic output sub optimal. On the other side, folks point out that corruption is really sometimes necessary to get the wheels of action spinning, and without it, a lot of money making activities would simply come to a halt.

So, which one of these sides is right? Well, looking at the data, research published in the Cogent Economics & Finance journal shows that in a list of 83 developing countries, a single unit of increase in corruption can the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita from anywhere between 0.5% to 1.5%. The data covers 83 countries for a time period of six years between 2012 and 2018, and the research also shows that foreign direct investment (FDI) also flies away from countries that are more corrupt. FDI is one of the most important sources of foreign capital injection in developing countries since it focuses primarily on infrastructure and business projects which allow for capacity building through technology transfer as well as create new jobs.

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