Transparency’s International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide. It is published annually and it ranks 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, scoring on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean)
Zambia’s 2025 CPI Performance: A Concerning Setback
Score: 37 out of 100
This represents a 2-point decline from the 2024 score of 39/100.
Global Rank: 99th out of 182 countries and territories
Zambia has fallen 7 places in the global ranking, moving from 92nd in 2024 to 99th in 2025.
Zambia’s CPI score declined by 2 points in 2025, from 39/100 in 2024 to 37/100, and its rank fell by 7 places from 92/180 in 2024 to 99/182 in 2025. This is the first time the CPI score for Zambia has declined in the past five years, indicating challenges in sustaining anti-corruption efforts. The analysis of data sources indicates that Zambia’s CPI score declined due to a 15-point drop in the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey score and a 3-point drop in the Varieties of Democracy Project score.
The World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey measures bribery in business operations (the supply side of political corruption), while the Varieties of Democracy Project measures political corruption in the executive, legislature, and judiciary (the demand side of political corruption), including bribery, embezzlement, procurement corruption and grand corruption.
Therefore, TI-Z attributes the decline in the 2025 CPI score to increased abuse of office to facilitate the diversion of public funds through strategic business interests and political supporters, ahead of the 2026 Elections.
In 2025, the global CPI average dropped for the first time in more than a decade to just 42/100, indicating that the vast majority of countries are failing to keep corruption under control.
There is a worrying trend of democracies seeing worsening perceived corruption, including the United States (64), Canada (75) and New Zealand (81).
In 2025, 122 countries scored under 50/100 in the index, and at the same time, the number of countries scoring above 80/100 has shrunk from 12 a decade ago to
just five this year.
Our analysis of changes in scores since 2012, indicates that only 31 countries out of 181 recorded improved scores, while 50 declined and 100 stayed the same.
Sub-Saharan Africa Average: 32/100
The region remains the lowest-performing globally, with its average dropping 1 point from 2024.
As in previous years, Western Europe & EU remains the highest scoring region with an average of 64/100. However, this region also accounts for the highest number of countries that declined since 2012.
Sub-Saharan Africa (32/100), and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (34/100) continue to
trail as the lowest scoring regions on the CPI. The average scores for both regions dropped by 1 point in 2025, while 7 countries in both regions improved their scores since 2012.
In Sub-Saharan Africa (32/100), only four of the 49 countries scored above 50; ten have significantly worsened since 2012, and only seven have improved over the same period.
The Seychelles (68) remains the region’s highest scorer, followed by Cabo Verde (62), Botswana (58) and Rwanda (58). The lowest scorers are Sudan (14), Eritrea (13), Somalia (9), and South Sudan (9). Angola (32) has gained 17 points since 2015, following measures such as high-profile investigations and prosecutions, and new laws that facilitate the recovery of stolen
assets.
Mozambique (21) has dropped 10 points. Official figures show that corruption cases registered in the first quarter of 2025 cost the state about US$4.1 million, underscoring the scale of the challenge.
