Egypt is one of the 30 countries which signed the United Nations Convention against Corruption in Merida, Mexico, on December 9, 2003. The treaty came into force on December 14, 2005.

A number of initiatives to combat corruption have been launched by the government in recent years. Egypt also has various institutions that have roles to play in fighting corruption, such as, the Administrative Authority Council, the Central Auditing Agency, Administrative Prosecution Authority, and Public Funds Prosecution. A committee of integrity and Transparency was established in 2007 with a mandate to formulate a strategy for combating corruption. However, lack of independence, access to information, protection of whistle blowers and lack of clear mandate of the agencies has crippled their impact in fighting corruption.

Moreover, there are a number of anti corruption campaigns launched by the Egyptian Civil Society and Egyptian Media. However, the initiatives are crippled by the state of emergency, the NGO restrictive law no. 84 of 2002, and recent laws of heavy fines and penalties for media people.

Experts agree that corruption in Egypt is pervasive and the use of wasta ('influence' in Arabic) and facilitation payments are essential to get most things done. They further note that that corruption has infiltrated all aspects of Egyptian society. The country is facing major challenges in combating both grand and petty corruption. In 2007, the government even admitted that corruption is a serious problem and the Prime Minister expressed his dedication to combating bribery.

Accountability and transparency is very weak in the legal/ regulation system and it's implementation. This includes accountability of the government and Parliament, despite the fact that there are regulations to govern conflict of interest and asset disclosure. Moreover, there is a lack of access, creation and circulation of information. A UNDP report also identifies, among other factors, the weak civil society monitoring capacity especially in CSO networks, weak professional journalism on corruption and no protection for whistle blowers and overall impunity and marginalization of the poor in rule of law and access to justice as the power context by which corruption exists.

In general, Egypt has maintained a weak position in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) from 1998 to 2009. It ranks 111 out of 180 countries in the last CPI of 2009.

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