CORRUPTION remains one of the most persistent global governance challenges, undermining socio-economic development, public service delivery, macroeconomic stability and the protection of human rights.
Extensive research demonstrates that high levels of corruption are closely associated with increased inequality, inefficient allocation of public resources, weakened institutions, and declining public trust.
In developing country contexts, such as Zimbabwe, corruption exacerbates poverty and constrains inclusive growth, making it both a governance and development concern of critical national importance.
As governments, development partners, and civil society actors increasingly pursue evidence-based anti-corruption reforms, the ability to measure corruption systematically and comparatively has become essential. Reliable measurement tools support policy design, track reform progress, enable benchmarking, and strengthen accountability.
However, corruption is inherently difficult to measure directly because corrupt practices are illegal, concealled and rarely recorded.
As a result, indirect measurement approaches that rely on expert assessments, business surveys and risk evaluations have become central to global anti-corruption analysis.
It is within this context that Transparency International Zimbabwe (TI Z), through this article, seeks to identify strategic policy entry points for policymakers to strengthen the national anti-corruption drive and improve governance outcomes, including performance on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
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Before the mid-1990s, no globally comparable tool existed to assess public-sector corruption across countries.
In response, Transparency International introduced the CPI in 1995. Since then, the CPI has become the most widely recognised global indicator of public-sector corruption, influencing policy debates, donor engagement, investment decisions, and governance reform agendas worldwide.
The CPI is published annually and measures perceived levels of public-sector corruption using expert assessments and surveys of business professionals.
It aggregates data from a minimum of three and up to 13 independent sources, including international financial institutions, policy research organisations and private risk assessment firms.
These sources assess risks related to bribery, misuse of public funds, abuse of public office, state capture, and the effectiveness of anti-corruption institutions.
All data are standardised onto a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), enabling meaningful cross-country comparison over time.
Over the past decade, Zimbabwe’s CPI performance has consistently remained below the Sub-Saharan Africa regional average, despite periods of modest improvement.
This underperformance has occurred alongside repeated political and policy commitments to combat corruption, including the establishment of anti-corruption institutions, the adoption of national anti-corruption strategies, and reforms to public procurement systems.
While these initiatives demonstrate formal alignment with international norms, their limited translation into improved CPI scores highlights persistent weaknesses in implementation and enforcement.
What the CPI measures and does not
The CPI plays a critical role in global anti-corruption efforts by providing a clear, standardised, and internationally comparable measure of public-sector corruption.
Its strength lies in synthesising multiple credible data sources into a single, accessible score that allows policymakers, civil society, and development partners to track trends and benchmark performance.
By focusing on expert and business perceptions, the CPI captures informed views closely linked to governance quality, investment risk, and institutional effectiveness.
The CPI measures key manifestations of public-sector corruption, including bribery, diversion of public funds, abuse of office, and weaknesses in accountability mechanisms. However, it does not capture all forms of corruption.
It excludes citizens’ direct experiences, private-sector corruption, tax evasion, illicit financial flows, money laundering, and the role of professional enablers. As such, the CPI should be understood as a proxy indicator of governance integrity rather than a comprehensive measure of all corrupt practices.
Methodologically, the CPI is more reliable than any individual source because it averages multiple independent assessments, reducing bias and compensating for errors in single datasets. The use of consistent methodologies since 2012 allows for meaningful trend analysis, making the CPI a valuable tool for monitoring reform outcomes and informing policy dialogue.
Zimbabwe’s CPI trends
Between 2012 and 2020, Zimbabwe recorded a gradual improvement in its CPI score, rising from 20 to a peak of 24.
This modest progress coincided with governance reforms following the adoption of the 2013 constitution, which strengthened principles of accountability, transparency, and institutional oversight.
From 2021 to 2024, Zimbabwe’s CPI score declined sharply from 24 to 21, returning the country to one of its lowest global rankings. This reversal reflected growing concerns among experts and business actors regarding governance quality, policy credibility, and corruption risks.
Although Zimbabwe recorded a marginal improvement in 2025, the overall trend underscores the fragility of earlier gains and persistent scepticism about the effectiveness of anti-corruption reforms.
Importantly, this decline must be understood within the dynamics of perception formation. Anti- corruption reforms introduced after 2017 and under the National Anti-Corruption Strategy increased public debate, media scrutiny, and awareness of corruption.
In the short term, greater exposure of governance failures likely worsened perceptions. Over the longer term, however, sustained implementation and visible accountability are necessary for perceptions to improve.
Strategic way forward Zim’s future
CPI performance will likely depend less on adopting new frameworks and more on credible implementation of existing frameworks and enforcement of anti-corruption initiatives.
Strengthened coordination between investigative, prosecutorial, and oversight bodies is essential, alongside transparent communication of progress on high-profile cases and asset recovery.
The following key interventions and recommendations will underline — enhancing accountability and transparency in public financial management and procurement:
Zimbabwe’s CPI Score
Reinforce accountability and transparency in public financial management and procurement by ensuring that anti-corruption institutions, supreme audit bodies, and oversight agencies operate with full independence, adequate funding, and legal protection from political interference.
Expand and fully operationalise digital public procurement systems, mandating the publication of procurement plans, contract awards, beneficial ownership information, and audit outcomes in accessible, machine-readable formats.
Strengthen enforcement of transparency, accountability and integrity pri ciples that fully enable the reduction discretionary decision-making. This will improve governance performance and signal institutional credibility to experts, investors, and development partners.
Strengthened horizontal and vertical accountability systems:
Promote independence and effectiveness of institutions responsible for horizontal
accountability namely the judiciary, parliament, audit institutions, and anti-corruption bodies. This includes guaranteeing secure tenure and transparent appointment processes for judges and senior oversight officials, protecting institutions from executive interference.
Foster active civil society engagement and citizen oversight, including creating platforms for public consultation, protecting the rights of civil society organizations, and
encouraging community participation in monitoring public service delivery.
Promote judicial independence: Promote both judicial independence and the consistency of law enforcement to foster a robust rule of law.
Law enforcement agencies must adopt clear operational guidelines and strengthen internal accountability, subjecting officers to independent oversight to ensure the equal application of laws, irrespective of political or social status.
Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ) is a non-profit, non-partisan, systems orientated local chapter of the international movement against corruption. Its broad mandate is to fight corruption and related vices through networks of integrity. It was established in 1996 and is recognised as one of six such chapters in Southern Africa. TI Zimbabwe’s mission is to combat corruption, hold power to account and promote transparency, accountability, and integrity in all sectors of society. Follow TI Z on: X — @TIZim_info. Website: https://www.tizim.org.
