Donor countries have responsibility to root out corruption in aid flows

International donors have a responsibility to root out corruption and improve the transparency of aid funds, says Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden’s minister for development cooperation.

“There is a risk that corruption is as pandemic as the spread, for example, of HIV and AIDS, but we don’t talk about it, as we should,” she told the BMJ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Since early October Sweden has suspended its contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria after the fund’s inspector general reported cases of corruption and abuse by recipients in four countries. …