Special Edition on Anti-Corruption, Transparency and Accountability

Corruption costs lives (e.g. one study estimates that 140 000 children’s deaths a year are caused by corruption) and resources (e.g. another study estimates the global average loss rate for health care fraud and abuse to be 6.19% of total health expenditure), it also weakens health systems (e.g. favor the introduction of substandard medical products) and exacerbates inequalities (e.g. one study shows that informal payments are regressive and concentrated among the poorest). 

However, discussions on corruption in health systems have been limited, and efforts to upheld Anti-Corruption, Transparency and Accountability measures have been fragmented and disparate. 

WHO has commissioned a special edition in Global Health Action on Anti-Corruption, Transparency and Accountability (ACTA). This special edition aims at providing an introduction to this crucial topic while also including deep-dives on specific aspects, and raise the profile of ACTA issues in the global health community. It is the result of a collaboration between WHO's Health Governance and Financing Department and WHO's Gender Equity and Right Team, supported by DFID. 

The special edition includes the following articles:

• Promoting anti-corruption, transparency and accountability to achieve Universal Health Coverage (Theadora Koller, David Clarke, Taryn Vian). 

• Anti-corruption, transparency and accountability: an updated review of concepts, frameworks, and intervention areas (Taryn Vian)

• Using human rights mechanisms to enable anti-Corruption, transparency and accountability to address corruption within the health sector  (Sharifa Shakalala, Haleema Masud, and Rebekah Thomas Bosco)

• Promoting anti-corruption, transparency and accountability in the recruitment and promotion of health workers to safeguard health outcomes (Monica Kirya)

• The risk of corruption in public pharmaceutical procurement: how anti-Corruption, transparency and accountability measures may reduce this risk (Jillian Kohler and Deirdre Dimancesco)

• An interdisciplinary review of digital technologies to address corruption, transparency and accountability in medicines procurement (Tim Mackey and Raphael Cuomo)

• Addressing anti-corruption, transparency, and accountability in healthcare: case study of the Arab Countries (Mostafa Hunter, Rania Uwaydah Mardini, Arkan El-Seblani, and Sammer Elsayed)

• Recalibrating the anti-corruption, transparency, and accountability formula to advance public health (Aneta Wierzynska, Sarah Steingruber, Roxanne Oroxom, and Sebastian Bauhoff)

The special edition can be found here.