Although the intolerance of businesses to corruption grew, the population and entrepreneurs still prefer not to report corrupt practices they have experienced while interacting with public officials. This is one of the main conclusions of the National Integrity and Anti-corruption Strategy (NIAS) 2017-2020 Impact Monitoring Survey. The study was developed by the Center of Sociological, Politological and Psychological Analyses and Investigations CIVIS and commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in the framework of the “Curbing corruption and building sustainable integrity in the Republic of Moldova” project, implemented by UNDP Moldova, and funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The impact of the National Integrity and Anticorruption Strategy for 2017-2020 was measured and monitored based on 14 general indicators and 106 specific indicators. The results show an improvement compared to the situation in the baseline study conducted in 2017 for 9 indicators, worsening for 4 indicators and stagnation for one indicator.

Regarding the corruption perception, the share of respondents considering that corruption is not a problem in Moldova has decreased from 5% to 4% as compared to the initial study conducted in 2017, especially in case of companies – a drop from 6% to 3%. A decrease was also registered for the number of respondents who have declared that they have paid a bribe over the last year – from 7.5% to 6% and of those who have paid a bribe in the form of some goods – from 4.6% to 3.1%. The average frequency of paying bribes has also decreased from 4.9 cases/year, on average to 3.7 cases.

Also, the main causes of corruption in Moldova are low salaries in the public sector (approx. 3/4 of the respondents) and the mentality of soliciting and giving bribes, but there is a growing importance of other factors such as lacking punishment of corrupt persons or application of mild sanctions that are not proportionate with the severity of corrupt practices, lack of protection for whistle-blowers, and lack of confiscation of wealth gained through corruption. The share of respondents stating that the corruption level decreased in our country dropped from 25% to 19%, especially in case of public agents. At the same time, the share of those considering any corruption situation to be unacceptable has increased from 53% to 57%, especially among legal entities.

The study has also revealed that the share of companies from private sector stating that they did not face any corruption situations involving public agents increased from 53% to 58%. The share of companies claiming that corruption in the judiciary, fiscal system, customs, check of products’ quality and public procurement procedures is among the main obstacles for their activity remained at the level registered in 2017 – 32%.

The study was carried out based on three national surveys conducted among the general population on a sample composed of 1109 respondents, 504 active companies and 607 public agents from central and local public administration. The surveys took place in 283 urban and rural localities, randomly selected at the national level.

The previous editions of the study were conducted in 2017 and in 2019.