9 December is International Anti-Corruption Day, an opportunity for us to reflect on our progress, challenges and opportunities in preventing and combating corruption.

Over the past two decades, corruption measurement has improved, yet the world still lacks comparable and actionable data to guide meaningful reforms. UNDP’s Global Initiative on Measuring Corruption, launched in December 2023, aims to fill this gap by developing indicators to track corruption risks and assess countries’ progress.

A key output of the Global Initiative is the new Global Anti-Corruption Data Dashboard, introduced at the Global Conference on Harnessing Data to Improve Corruption Measurement last week in New York. Also known as the Anti-Corruption Compass, the dashboard serves as an online repository of data, indicators and information designed to guide anti-corruption reforms. 

In 2024, UNDP, in partnership with the Government Transparency Institute (GTI) and with input from an Advisory Committee of Experts, convened by UNDP and comprising representatives from various institutions, academia, and Member States, standardized a methodology to measure and analyze integrity risks in public procurement. It accounts for as much as 30 percent of public spending, approximately US$13 trillion globally each year, and remains highly vulnerable to corruption and inefficiencies. 

Strengthening integrity in public procurement holds enormous promise to save billions of dollars, serving as a potentially powerful instrument to improve social, environmental and economic outcomes and advance sustainable development. 

While digitalization and open contracting have improved transparency, many countries still struggle to use data effectively. The UNDP-led methodology and indicators aim to bridge that gap by measuring key red flags in public procurement and highlighting important observations with a particular focus on five core sets of indicators:

• The use of non-competitive procurement methods
• Contracts awarded without publishing a call for tenders
• Tenders with only a single bid submitted
• Contracts awarded to companies registered in tax havens
• Contracts that are modified after signing.

Using these indicators in 2025, the UNDP-GTI partnership developed the most comprehensive global database of comparable integrity risk indicators to date, covering 51 countries, more than 70 million contracts and $60 trillion in spending in purchasing parity power terms, over eight years. These five indicators are calculated from a database that aggregates and standardizes publicly available data from national government procurement systems.

The indicators and analysis allow users to examine the prevalence of risks that may be warning signs of corruption and inefficiencies warranting further investigation.  

A deeper analysis has been done by UNDP at country level to explore common product markets such as construction, education and healthcare. The indicators will also be used for country analysis factsheets that highlight major trends, risks and areas of progress.

The full Global Data Dashboard is set to be released to the public early next year. UNDP and GTI aim to include data for more countries in 2026 and beyond.

For more information, please contact anticorruption@undp.org