The 2013 - 2019 reporting period highlighted discrete and collective efforts by Member States towards strengthening institutions and improving leadership with a view to ensuring that public services are more professional, efficient, responsive, accountable, impartial and corruption-free. The overall aggregate score, however, signals a very weak performance, achieving only 4% of the target value in 2019.

Measured by the proportion of persons who had at least one contact with a public official and paid a bribe to a public official or were asked for a bribe by those public officials during the previous twelve months, there was an upsurge registered in the proportions in a number of countries.