About Us

African Resource Centre for Anticorruption in Health (ARCAH), is a platform to share experiences about corruption in the health sector and feasible anticorruption approaches that are backed by evidence. It was founded in 2022 in response to health sector corruption issues in Africa. The centre is a product of extensive research on health sector corruption since 2017, led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Health Policy Research Group (HPRG), University of Nigeria, and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. Corruption revelations in the health sector and the need for actions, led to the establishment of ARCAH as a sustainable model to rapidly provide evidence on health sector corruption, and importantly to galvanize stakeholders toward pursuing anticorruption.

African countries have largely ranked poorly in Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). With exceptions of Seychelles, Botswana, and Rwanda, many African countries score below 50% in very recent CPI ratings by Transparency International. Nigeria, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, which are countries where ARCAH has gained some roots, score below 40%, and indeed, among the countries where corruption is most endemic in the world. The health sector remains one of the enlisted top corrupt sectors across these countries, with implications for morbidity and mortality, and constraints to the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

Common health sector corruption concerns in African countries as identified by ARCAH include absenteeism, informal payments, employment-related corruption, procurement corruption, and health financing corruption. These persisting corruption concerns weaken the health system and can be the difference between life and death. It is the aspiration of ARCAH to rapidly provide evidence-informed understanding of the dynamics of these diverse health sector corruption issues and proof-of-concept solutions.

ARCAH comprises of health systems and policy experts drawn from diverse fields to include global health, health economics, social policy, sociology, psychology, development economics, anthropology, community medicine, social work, and health administration and management. ARCAH is currently based in a number of institutions, which include London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Health Policy Research Group, University of Nigeria; University of Malawi; School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London; Bayero University, Kano.

The mentioned institutions have worked independently and collectively on diverse health sector corruption issues, utilizing several research approaches that include, ethnography, quantitative surveys, in-depth interviews, cost effectiveness analysis, focus group discussions, policy review, and systematic and scoping literature reviews. The findings from these studies are published in various top tier journals and blog outlets, such as Health Policy and Planning, Health Systems and Reform, International Journal of Public Health, International Journal of Health Planning and Management, International Social Work, The Conversation, to mention but a few.

ARCAH findings have as well been presented in several conferences organised by the Health Systems Global, African Research Universities Alliance, African Health Economics and Policy Association, inter alia. Members of ARCAH lead the Technical Working Group (TWG) on Action for Accountability and Anticorruption for SDGs and they are a part of the Global Network for Anticorruption, Transparency, and Accountability, commissioned by the World Health Organisation to keep health sector corruption and anticorruption conversations at the fore of health systems strengthening in pursuit of the achievement of global health goals.