Mike Masoud
July 25, 2021
Corruption has clearly evolved into a worldwide issue that undermines the national security of many countries, including the United States of America, where it has been a domestic issue for decades. On June 3, 2021, the US President said ” corruption threatens United States national security, economic equity, global antipoverty and development efforts, and democracy itself.”
But there are prerequisites to succeed in the fight against corruption globally. The prevalence of freedom in a society determines to a great extent the success or failure of fighting corruption. Freedom, in this context, means “negative liberty or the absence of coercive constraint,” as defined by Cato Institute. Individual and institutional freedom are fundamental pillars to design and implement corruption prevention policy. I do not expect to find many whistleblowers in a community or an organization if people fear retaliation from those who are in charge of governance. Whistleblowers uncover more than 50% of fraud and corruption cases.
Human Freedom Index (HFI)
Co‐published by the Cato Institute and the Fraser Institute, “the HFI is the most comprehensive freedom index so far created for a globally meaningful set of countries. The HFI covers 162 countries for 2018, the most recent year for which sufficient data are available. The index ranks countries beginning in 2008, the earliest year for which a robust enough index could be produced.” On a scale of 0 to 10, the average human freedom rating for 162 countries in 2018 was 6.93, where 10 represents more freedom.
The HFI found that out of 10 regions, “the highest levels of freedom are in North America (Canada and the United States), Western Europe, and East Asia. The lowest levels are in the Middle East and North Africa, sub‐Saharan Africa, and South Asia.” HFI alos suggest that “freedom plays an important role in human well‐being,…. and can be influenced by, political regimes, economic development, and the whole range of indicators of human well‐being.”
You may read and download the HFI 2020 when you click here.
The Effective Fighter of Corruption
Countries that are sincere in eradicating corruption, money laundering, and financing terrorism should work hard to improve their HFI scores. There are plausible reasons to believe that corruption increases as the HFI score goes down towards zero. There is a direct relationship between corruption and HFI score.
The effective fighter of corruption is a free and competent citizen. Slaves do not fight corruption; they cover up fraud and corruption. It is not unusual for corrupt regimes/leadership to invest in ignorance rather than fighting corruption.
