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handle is hein.crs/goveffd0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Infrmr gthe Igs liedbt i6e11 0 February 1, 2022 Anti-corruption Efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean Corruption in the Region Corruption of public office holders remains an issue for countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and an increasing area of focus for U.S. foreign policy and congressional interest. The region is struggling to overcome governance challenges that have worsened over the past two years, as the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has presented new opportunities for corruption and has frustrated efforts to combat it. The annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of the nongovernmental organization Transparency International compares perceived public sector corruption among 180 countries; the 2021 CPI notes, countries of the Americas have ground to a halt in the fight against corruption. Of the 32 nations surveyed in LAC, 18 (shown in Figure 1) have stayed in roughly the same relative order for the past five years. The CPI measures perceived rather than actual corruption; actual corruption is difficult to measure because of its opaque nature and different definitions for the phenomena. However, numerous U.S. and global agencies use the CPI as a benchmark and diagnostic tool for comparing relative levels of transparency. Figure I. Selected LAC Countries from Transparency International's 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index More corrupt º More corrupt - HIGHER LOWER LOWER HIGHER SCORE SCORE RANKRANK SCORE RANK SCORE RANK Uruguay 1i El Salvador Chile 67 27 Mexico Costa Rica 5 39 Bolivia Jamaica 70 D. Republic fl Colombia 87 Guatemala EK Argentina Honduras Brazil flNicaragua E E Ecuador HaitirEND Peru Venezuela EIE E1 Source: Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2021, January 25, 2022, at http://www.transparency.org/cpi. Graphic, CRS. Notes: Figure shows a representative selection of LAC countries. Scores are scaled 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. Countries are ranked from I to 180, with I the lowest and 180 the highest level of perceived corruption relative to other countries. Regional U.S. Anti-corruption Efforts The United States employs several tools to combat corruption in LAC and worldwide. These tools include support to independent anti-corruption commissions or bodies; legislative tools, including sanctions and measures of corruption by country; and foreign assistance programs implemented by U.S. agencies. Anti-corruption Commissions and Their Closures The United States has provided financial and political support to anti-corruption commissions backed by international organizations. These hybrid bodies, which collaborate with local officials and operate within local justice systems, have helped several countries investigate significant public corruption abuses. However, political leaders have dismantled most of these bodies or allowed them to expire in the past three years. Guatemala. Guatemala's anti-corruption commission, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), was an independent international body designed to support the country's justice system. CICIG was created by an agreement between the Guatemalan government and the United Nations (U.N.) in 2006, with support from civil society activists. CICIG supported investigations that led to the prosecution of numerous high-ranking officials and the 2015 indictment of the sitting president and vice president. CICIG faced increasing pressure from political and economic elites who were the subjects of its investigations, as well as diminished U.S. support under the Trump Administration. In 2019, President Jimmy Morales (himself the subject of probes) allowed the body to expire. Honduras. The Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH) was created through a 2016 agreement with the Organization of American States (OAS). Although the MACCIH was more limited than CICIG in its investigatory power, it worked with Honduran prosecutors to indict 133 individuals, including dozens of legislators and other government officials, during its four-year mandate. The MACCIH also proposed legislation to address the structural causes of corruption, resulting in the enactment of campaign finance reforms and the creation of anti-corruption courts. Those efforts sparked political resistance from Honduran officials and powerful elites in the private sector, and President Juan Orlando Hernhndez allowed the MACCIH's mandate to expire in January 2020. El Salvador. In 2019, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele established the International Commission Against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES) in collaboration with the OAS. CICIES originally had a narrower scope than either CICIG or the MACCIH, lacking the authority to carry out independent investigations or prosecute cases. Numerous civil society organizations proposed strengthening CICIES by extending its prosecutorial powers and establishing its independence from the executive branch. In 2020, CICIES launched investigations into the misuse of funds intended to address the COVID-19 pandemic, including by the executive branch. In June 2021, President Bukele terminated the agreement that founded CICIES, leading to the commission's dissolution. ittps://crsreports.congress.gc