Israel marked an improvement in the 2015 Corruption Perception Index published on Wednesday by Transparency International. Israel received a mark of 61, placing it in 32nd place out of 168 countries. This was five spots higher than the previous year. However, Israel is still rated in the bottom third of OECD countries. The index ranks countries based on how corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians. It uses a scale of 0 (very corrupt) to 100 (very clean). This year, Denmark topped the list with a score of 91, followed by Finland, Sweden and New Zealand. Somalia, North Korea and Afghanistan rounded out the bottom of the list. Israel was ranked third out of 19 African and Middle Eastern countries, after Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Iraq, Libya and Sudan were ranked the lowest in the region.
