KABUL – The Ashraf Ghani led Afghanistan unity government which has beenboosting a lot about its achievement and the anti corruption campaign hasmet with the serious blow by the latest international report.

*Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Indexlink>ranksAfghanistan as the 4th most corrupt country in the world, trailing onlySyria, South Sudan and Somalia.*

The study illustrates Afghanistan in 4th place among 180 countries in theworld.

The index also highlights that the majority of countries are making littleor no progress in ending corruption, “while further analysis showsjournalists and activists in corrupt countries risking their lives everyday in an effort to speak out”.

The index, which ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceivedlevels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople,uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

This year, the index found that more than two-thirds of countries scorebelow 50, with an average score of 43.

This year, New Zealand and Denmark rank highest with scores of 89 and 88respectively.

Syria, South Sudan and Somalia rank lowest with scores of 14, 12 and 9respectively.

Afghanistan has a score of only 15, while Yemen and Sudan have a score of16 and Libya 17.

Even North Korea fared better with a score of 17.

The best performing region is Western Europe with an average score of 66.

The worst performing regions are Sub-Saharan Africa (average score 32) andEastern Europe and Central Asia (average score 34).

Since 2012, several countries significantly improved their index score,including Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and the United Kingdom, while severalcountries declined, including Syria, Yemen and Australia.