Corruption and public exclusion: a serious challenge to effective public policy on health

Abstract

Corruption has become a household name in most developing countries globally as several people engage in it secretly and in the public. The usual norm in the time past was that corruption was limited to politicians but reverse is the case in recent times as public institutions and representatives of funding agencies in developing countries are becoming deeply involved in it. This has also led to mistrusts, pursuit of selfish aims and among others between the funding agencies, government and implementers. This has in turn brought a wide gap between the key players and members of the public as far as health policy is concerned. This paper therefore seeks to examine the dimensions and challenges of corruption among these actors as a major cause of public exclusion in health programmes in Nigeria.