Poland is considered to be less corrupt this year than it was in 2009, according to a report by Transparency International (TI). Poland ranked 41st place out of 178 nations included in the organization's annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI), up from 49th place last year.

The CPI measures the extent to which public-sector corruption is considered to exist in a particular country -- the top-ranking country is considered to be the least corrupt.  

The index uses a scale ranging from 10 (“highly clean”) to 0 (“highly corrupt”). Poland finished with a corruption perception score of 5.3 – an improvement on the 5.0 it achieved last year. For the majority of other countries, however, the results appear rather more bleak.

“The 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index shows that nearly three quarters of the 178 countries in the index score below five,” TI wrote in the report. “These results indicate a serious corruption problem.”

TI noted that of those countries whose CPI scores declined year-on-year, some of the more prominent are those which were “most affected by a financial crisis precipitated by transparency and integrity deficits.”

Although not mentioned explicitly, financially stricken Greece is likely considered by TI to be one of these countries, having fallen from 71st place (CPI 3.5) last year to 78th place in 2010, the lowest position of any EU member state.

Denmark, Singapore and New Zealand came in joint-first place, each scoring 9.3. Somalia came in last place with a score of 1.1.