Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2024

1. Overview

No country is immune from corruption and its adverse impact on prosperity and democracy

Corruption deepens inequalities and weakens economic growth. It affects GDP growth through its impact on investment, competition and entrepreneurship, and affects key determinants of productivity growth, including innovation and diffusion of new technologies, the market environment, and public and private investment decisions. It also shapes other indicators of economic development, such as environmental quality or inequality, which affect economic welfare and a country’s development potential (OECD, 2018[1]; Cieślik and Goczek, 2018[2]).

Corruption also erodes the resilience and proper functioning of democracies. It leads to the capture of legislative and regulatory processes, so that rules are made in the interests of the few rather than the wider public interest. And it facilitates the undue influence of policymaking, producing ineffective or inefficient policies, wasting public resources, and ultimately leading to worse outcomes for the public (Mark E. Warren, 2014[3]; Mungiu-Pippidi, 2011[4]; Johnston, 1999[5]).

In both cases, corruption impedes representation and trust in government. While democratic public institutions in many OECD countries are performing relatively well on several measures of citizens’ trust, such as government reliability and public service provision, public confidence remains evenly split between those who trust their national government and those who do not (OECD, 2022[6]). Many citizens perceive governments as falling short on responsiveness, representation and participation, fuelled by some scepticism surrounding the integrity of policymakers and public institutions. Through its public integrity indicators, the OECD is measuring how countries are doing against the goal of having a fully comprehensive integrity framework with the full set of regulations and implementation tools in place.

More countries are adopting strategies to curb corruption, but considerable gaps in some areas of regulations and implementation remain

Data from the OECD Public Integrity Indicators (PIIs) shows that while OECD countries’ regulations on anti-corruption and integrity are becoming more comprehensive and sophisticated, their scope sometimes remains limited and their implementation is weak (Figure ‎1.1). Lobbying regulations are particularly underdeveloped, or non-existent, in many countries, and regulations on corruption risk management and audit are the least implemented. While more countries are adopting strategies to curb corruption, they still mainly focus on actions to promote integrity in the public sector, not the private sector, and fail to adapt to newer integrity risks.

Figure ‎1.1. Strength of regulations and their application in practice

How to read: As measured against OECD standards on conflict of interest, OECD countries fulfil on average 76% of criteria for regulations and 40% for implementation.

Source: OECD (2024[7]), OECD Public Integrity Indicators Database.

The implementation gap in these aspects of OECD countries’ integrity frameworks, where regulations and policies are not being implemented in practice, is significant. On average across OECD countries, anti-corruption and public integrity frameworks have an implementation gap of 17 percentage points, meaning the difference between the average share of standard regulations in place and the average of standard regulations implemented in practice. While it is important for OECD countries to set high standards and clear ways of working in their regulations and legislation, they should not over-rely on approaches based on the creation of rules. It is only by implementing regulations in practice through, for instance, improving office holders’ understanding of integrity standards and processes, setting clear responsibilities for overseeing aspects of the integrity framework, or monitoring and evaluating the performance of integrity policies and processes, that corruption risks are mitigated and integrity upheld. Strong legislation which is not implemented in practice can also lead to a sense of impunity and lower trust.

Moreover, it is vital that countries monitor the implementation of key parts of their anti-corruption and integrity frameworks more effectively. Monitoring is a continuous process, using the systematic collection of data on specified indicators to provide information on how far objectives are being achieved and progress made. For key aspects of their frameworks many countries are unable to evidence levels of implementation. Indeed, 60% of OECD countries do not monitor the implementation of their anti-corruption and integrity strategies. This lack of effective monitoring makes it impossible for them to evaluate whether their policies and processes are mitigating corruption risks and improving integrity in practice. Collecting data on implementation is thus fundamental to a strong integrity framework, and therefore countries unable to evidence the performance of important aspects of their frameworks could take steps to improve their monitoring processes.

The following chapters expand on these findings, and set out how key aspects of OECD countries’ integrity frameworks are currently performing.

A strategic approach can shift a country’s focus from ad hoc anti-corruption and integrity policies to a coherent and comprehensive integrity system. As Chapter 2 shows, the majority of OECD countries are now taking such an approach to corruption through the development of strategies adopted at the level of the government. However, these strategies are not as effective as they could be, remaining, for the most part, focused on traditional areas of corruption risk and anti-corruption work. In addition, on average 67% of the planned activities in countries’ strategies are implemented in practice. Countries should therefore focus on expanding the coverage of their strategies, supported by better consultation and use of evidence, and aim for better implementation through strong action plans and better monitoring and evaluation.

Effective internal audit and risk management reduce waste of public funds and vulnerabilities to fraud and corruption by reassuring managers that objectives are being met and risks effectively managed. Chapter 3 shows that countries’ regulations on risk management and internal control are strong, but their rules on internal audit need improvement. In addition, the implementation of risk management practices has not yet matured, and internal audit remains an underutilised governance tool against corruption.

Lobbying safeguards are among the weakest elements of OECD countries’ integrity frameworks. As Chapter 4 sets out the basic elements of lobbying frameworks are in place in less than half of OECD countries, leaving countries open to undue influence and exposed to new threats related to the green transition, AI and foreign interference. These risks are compounded by low levels of transparency around lobbying, which make it hard for the authorities to uphold the rules and the public to see who is influencing policy and decision making.

Countries have established strong regulations on conflicts of interest, to prevent the capture of policymaking by private interests. On average, 76% of OECD criteria for regulations on conflicts of interest are met. However, Chapter 5 demonstrates that countries’ defences against conflicts of interest remain vulnerable as their implementation and monitoring of required submissions need significant improvement. Processes to verify the accuracy of declarations could be stronger, as could measures for resolving conflicts and applying sanctions where the rules have been broken. And while some movement between the public and private sectors can improve policymaking through the exchange of knowledge and skills, most OECD countries’ data collection on this movement is not good enough for them to know whether they are mitigating integrity risks.

Political donations are an important means of expressing support to candidates and political parties, and a necessary resource for candidates and parties to run for office and represent the electorate’s interests. But, as explored in Chapter 6, where political financing is not transparent, there are significant risks that money may become an instrument of undue influence and policy capture. Although many countries ban donations from foreign sources or State-Owned Enterprises, anonymous donations remain a serious concern in many OECD countries, several countries do not have a strong central electoral commission, and many political parties do not comply with transparency requirements. Existing political finance regulations and institutions were designed to protect democracies in a national context many decades ago, and have not evolved to protect against foreign influence and transnational corruption risks. They therefore need an upgrade.

And finally, transparency is a core element of a functioning democracy and is underpinned by the right to access information about how governments and public institutions are working. Chapter 7 shows that while publication of data related to integrity is not always consistent, OECD countries have strong regulations and institutions to promote transparency. Importantly, new analysis shows that there is a positive and significant correlation between transparency of public information in practice (measured as the level of proactive disclosure of key datasets) and higher levels of public trust in countries with a trust deficit.

Integrity safeguards must improve in the face of current and future global challenges

In the last half century, globalisation has brought benefits to people and societies across the world, including growing integration of the flows of goods, services, capital, people and ideas across the planet. However, alongside its benefits have grown more opportunities for and more sophisticated forms of corruption, increasing the risk that the upsides of globalisation may not be realised, or felt by those who may need them most. Corruption in the more integrated financial systems, global supply chains and multi-jurisdictional entities globalisation has created has introduced more threats to the establishment of a fair and competitive global market and the propagation of strong, healthy democratic governments. The technological and societal changes brought by globalisation facilitate the infiltration of corruption into new markets, as well as the establishment of criminal relationships with safe-havens granting anonymity and impunity.

In parallel, notions of integrity are changing, as are citizens’ expectations about what integrity means and why it is important. With low levels of trust in government and increasing dissociation from traditional democratic institutions, citizens are making the connection between integrity and democracy more forcefully, expecting public administrations to be more active in safeguarding the integrity of policymaking and public institutions so they are more representative of their interests and needs (OECD, 2022[6]).

As the priorities set by OECD Ministers in the Declaration on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy [OECD/LEGAL/0484] (Luxembourg Declaration) make clear, and as confirmed by a strategic foresight exercise carried out for the development of this report, among the most significant challenges facing OECD countries in the coming years are: 1) the green transition and the growing demand for transition minerals; 2) Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digitalisation; and 3) foreign interference.1 All these global challenges are increasing pressure on integrity systems and exacerbating corruption risks, especially where the implementation gap is greatest.

The urgency and immense scale of climate change increasingly requires governments to work with the private sector, academia, civil society and other external organisations to deliver the green transition. This level of co-operation has led to stronger, more representative policymaking on climate issues. However, it can also pose significant risks to the integrity of public policymaking. As Chapter 8 sets out, mechanisms for managing lobbying, outside interests, political finance, and public information are currently not performing well enough to cope with the increasing pressure put on public policymaking by the green transition, and getting these mechanisms right will be an important part of governments’ abilities to meet their climate commitments.

AI can be a critical tool for governments to prevent and detect fraud and corruption, but also a weapon for malicious and corrupt actors to defraud the public sector and unduly influence public institutions and processes (OECD, 2021[8]; OECD, 2019[9]). Chapter 9 shows that in practice, countries’ poor monitoring of the implementation of their integrity frameworks is limiting the usefulness of AI for fighting corruption and upholding integrity, since AI is only as effective as the underlying data. In addition, challenges around auditing the use of AI in the public sector make assuring the integrity of policy development and implementation more complex. And the use of AI by those seeking, both legitimately and illegitimately, to influence public policy and decision makers increases the risks of undue and asymmetric influence.

Lastly, as explored in Chapter 10, foreign interference and so-called strategic corruption can exploit shortcomings in national regulations and institutional safeguards to manipulate policymaking in the target state away from the public interest in favour of the policy objectives of the perpetrator, a threat which has grown with globalisation and against which open democratic systems have more difficulties protecting themselves (Bressanelli et al., 2020[10]; Zelikow et al., 2020[11]). The current performance of many OECD countries’ mechanisms for managing lobbying and influencing activity, public office holders’ private interests, and political financing are leaving them vulnerable to foreign interference and should be a focus for reform in the coming years.

Aims of the OECD Anti-Corruption and Integrity Outlook

Using data from the OECD Public Integrity Indicators (Box ‎1.1), the following sections of this Outlook explore how some of the key areas of countries’ anti-corruption and integrity frameworks are currently performing in OECD countries, namely strategic framework, risk management, internal audit and control processes, and mechanisms for ensuring accountability in policymaking. With those levels of performance in mind, it then explores how the green transition, AI and foreign interference will continue to increase pressure on OECD countries’ integrity frameworks, especially where there are implementation gaps, and how these shortcomings in integrity systems can impede countries’ responses to these global challenges.

The cross-country analysis contained in this Outlook is accompanied by country fact sheets for each OECD Member country, which sets out the state of play and presents strengths and areas for improvement for each of the thematic areas covered by the PIIs.

By enabling comparisons of integrity policies, regulations and practices and locating them in the developing global context, the Outlook aims to contribute to peer learning and to ensure that integrity continues to grow in all OECD countries.

Box ‎1.1. The OECD Public Integrity Indicators

The first six chapters of this Outlook draw on data from the OECD Public Integrity Indicators (PIIs) to establish reliable, evidence-based benchmarks for government resilience to corruption risks and provide guidance on how to strengthen public integrity.

The following three datasets are included:

• Quality of anti-corruption and integrity strategic framework (data published in 2021, updated in 2023).

• Accountability of public policymaking, covering lobbying, conflict of interest, public information and political finance (data published in 2022).

• Effectiveness of internal control and risk management (data published in 2023).

The objective and actionable data helps decision makers understand the strengths and weaknesses of national integrity systems, better allocate resources and target specific challenges. The indicators measure the preparedness and resilience of the public integrity system at the national level to prevent corruption, mismanagement and waste of public funds, and the likelihood of detecting and mitigating various corruption risks by different actors.

Across the various indicators, a total of 203 standard criteria and 13 numerical indicators across the three datasets have been defined to express what constitutes effective laws, regulations, procedures and institutions. These criteria are both benchmarks to prompt peer learning as well as concrete steps for any country to take to continue to improve their systems. When a reference is made in this Outlook to a percentage of OECD countries that meet a standard criterion in a given field it is to these standard PII criteria, expressing for example the strength of regulations or the independence or operational capability of an anti-corruption body. In addition to these checklist-type indicators, the PIIs also include more outcome-oriented indicators drawing on administrative data and surveys. The OECD has collated existing key performance indicators from national authorities, established standard definitions to harmonise approaches and enabled cross-country comparison, for example regarding the implementation rate of internal audit recommendations.

A key design feature of the PIIs is the distinction between (a) strength of laws, regulations, policy papers and institutional mandates (de jure) and (b) the implementation of these policies in practice and achievement of outcomes (de facto). The PIIs measure both, and can therefore document if implementation is lagging, or cases where practice works well even without strong regulations.

The PIIs rely on primary data rather than expert assessments and proxies, and focus on actionable criteria and numerical rates. This allows the PIIs to document availability and quality of data in each OECD Member country, and where on average the OECD is facing a data gap.

The OECD’s first-ever standard indicators on public integrity and anti-corruption have been developed for and with governments, based on the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Public Integrity and other international legal instruments from bodies such as United Nations, the European Union, and the Council of Europe. The indicators were developed by a Task Force consisting of nine members of the Working Party of Senior Public Integrity Officials. Task Force members came from Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and the United Kingdom. The indicators were approved by all OECD Member countries. A second task force consisting of members from Chile, Czechia, Finland, France, Greece, and the United States has since been convened to oversee the rollout of the indicators.

For more information explore our OECD Public Integrity Indicators webpage at: https://www.oecd.org/gov/ethics/public-integrity-indicators.htm.

Source: OECD elaboration.

Note

← 1.  While not covered in this iteration, Serious Organised Crime is another significant change driver in many jurisdictions and could be addressed in future editions of the Outlook.