THE LASTEST CORRUPTION PERCEPTION INDEX released by Transparency International has listed Somalia as the most corrupt country of the 178 surveyed.

Russia has the dubious honour of being ranked the most corrupt G20 country, after being placed 154th alongside Tajikistan, Kenya and Cambodia, Bloomberg reports.

The next-most corrupt G20 member, Indonesia, was ranked 110th.

Bloomberg reports that Russians pay bribes of $300m (€217.3m) a year, which is almost a quarter of the country’s GNP. Bribery cases rose by about a hundred to 5,708 for the first half of this year in comparison with the same period last year.

Corruption: a global problem

The higher the score out of 10, the less corrupt the country is considered to be. The data used to designate rankings comes from country experts and institutions such as the World Bank and World Economic Forum. The Guardian has developed a map which denotes the corruption of countries by the size of the dot representing them.

Ireland came in at 14th, with a score of 8/10 – the same score awarded last year.

Transparency International told Al Jazeera that nearly 75% of the countries in the index scored below five, indicating a serious corruption problem worldwide. TI’s Edda Mueller said: “There are clear indications that the more unstable a country is, the higher the level of corruption”.

The report found that some of the countries most affected by the economic crisis have become more corrupt in 2010, such as Italy, Greece and the US. The US dropped in the ranking from 19th last year to 22nd in 2010.

On a more positive note, the index suggests that some countries are succeeded in their fight against corruption, such as Bhutan, Chile, Haiti, Kuwait and Gambia.

Reviewing this year’s index, Transparency International said:

The message is clear: across the globe, transparency and accountability are critical to restoring trust and turning back the tide of corruption. Without them, global policy solutions to many global crises are at risk.

The organisation called for greater global policy reforms to continue the fight against corruption.

This slideshow shows the three most and three least corrupt counties in the 2010 index: