Corruption and AIDS: an overview of the issues

Liz Tayler, February 2006

Corruption is limiting the impact of efforts to control the spread of HIV and to treat people living with AIDS in many parts of the world.

This paper looks at the service providers in the public and private sector, managers and policy makers, pharmaceutical companies and the international development assistance partners that interact at the level of designing and implementing health programmes. It also examines the corruption that takes places within the informal structures that emerge when formal health systems are failing.

It looks at what the impact of corruption on the HIV response might be, and discusses what the international community should do to minimise the chances of corruption undermining the HIV response.