Number 33 in the international corruption league

The 2009 Global Corruption Barometer report from Transparency International puts Israel in 33rd place among the 180 countries examined - the lower the number, the less corruption. This is a drop of three places for Israel since the last ranking.

Transparency International was established in 1993 and publishes a global public survey. TI says this year, the report "reveals a growing distrust of business, the daily struggle of the world's poor with petty bribery and public unconvinced of governments' anti-corruption efforts ... This year the report reflects the views of more than 73,000 people from 69 countries and territories around the world."

TI is represented in Israel by Shvil (Transparency International Israel), which was founded in 1999 by Prof. Dove Izraeli.

The Israeli branch is a "non-profit, non-governmental organization established in order to promote transparency and ethics in Israeli public life... and works to improve Israeli social norms of transparency."

Israel came out slightly better than Malta and the United Arab Emirates, but Qatar, Portugal and Cyprus were ranked as less corrupt than Israel.

The Israeli part of the survey was conducted by TNS Teleseker with 500 Israelis on February 22-23, 2009 after the most recent Knesset elections. In the rest of the world, Gallup International conducted most of the surveys.