Corruption is one of the greatest obstacles to the alleviation of poverty and the development of adequate and safe infrastructure, healthcare, and education.  

Human cost:

• The corrupt by-passing of building regulations and contract requirements means that infrastructure can be unsafe and environmentally damaging.
• The theft of public funds means that fewer roads, schools and hospitals are built, and less money is available for education and health.
• The demand for bribes to access healthcare, water, power, and education means that those people who cannot or will not pay these bribes are denied access to these services.

In consequence, people suffer deprivation, illness, and death.  The consequences fall disproportionately on the poor and vulnerable. 

Economic cost:

• Nationally, corruption reduces investor confidence and so reduces investment. Public funds are stolen resulting in slower growth.
• At project level, corruption increases project costs and results in defective infrastructure.
• At organisational level, organisations which wish to work ethically lose work to corrupt organisations, or are commercially or financially disadvantaged by corrupt public officials and organisations.

Alarming corruption estimates:

Corruption is concealed.  Much corruption is never discovered or prosecuted.  So, it is impossible to quantify accurately the cost of corruption.  The estimates below are more accurately described as guesses rather than estimates, but they do illustrate the potential enormity of the issue internationally.

• The United Nations and World Economic Forum have estimated the global cost of corruption at 5% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  Based on the world’s GDP for 2023 of US$ 105 trillion, this would equate to US $5.2 trillion per annum of global stolen funds.  This is higher than the annual GDP of Germany, which is the world’s third largest economy.
• Transparency International in 2019 estimated that corruption cost developing countries $1.26 trillion per year, and that this was enough money to lift the 1.4 billion people who get by on less than $1.25 a day above the poverty threshold and keep them there for at least six years.
• Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2017 recorded that 25% of persons surveyed worldwide had paid a bribe in the past 12 months so as to access public services such as health care and education.
• In the international construction sector, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 2021 estimated that, without significant interventions, by 2030 up to US$5 trillion could be lost annually to corruption.