Corruption During COVID-19: Looking Backward and Forward

***We have reached the maximum capacity for this event and are unable to process any more registrations. If you are interested in joining the waitlist for this event, please kindly contact Helen Liao at helen.liao@mail.utoronto.ca*** 

This event is co-hosted by the WHO Collaborating Center for Governance, Accountability and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector along with the Centre for Global Health in the University of Toronto. This event is sponsored by the Connaught Global Challenge. The event will be organized in person and tickets are limited so please make sure you are able to attend if you are signing up.

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Background

This two-day workshop will focus on lessons learned and forgotten about managing corruption risks during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will also focus on how anti-corruption, transparency and accountability mechanisms are essential to prevent corruption risks during public health emergencies.

Who Should Attend?

We welcome participants who are students, researchers and policy makers

Goal

To foster interdisciplinary discussion and debate and share knowledge with target audiences (students, researchers, and global health policy makers) on corruption risks in public health emergencies as well as anti-corruption, transparency, and accountability (ACTA) mechanisms to address them.

This workshop will:

• Discuss corruption risks during public health emergencies and their impact on health equity, particularly for the most marginalized populations

• Identify how the COVID-19 pandemic amplified corruption risks in the health system

• Highlight lessons learned and lessons forgotten about how to address corruption risks in public health emergencies

• Discuss the roles and risks of involving for-profit companies in development and delivery of vaccines, diagnostics and treatments for COVID-19

Agenda

Day 1: What are Corruption Vulnerabilities and Risks During Public Health Emergencies?

Day 2: What are the Solutions?

Speakers

Jillian Kohler

Jillian Kohler
Professor, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Governance, Transparency & Accountability in the Pharmaceutical Sector University of Toronto

Dr. Kohler’s research focuses on fair access to essential medicines with a particular focus on good governance and intellectual property rights. She pioneered the methodology on good governance in the pharmaceutical system for the World Bank, which was subsequently adopted by the WHO and has been applied in over 35 countries globally.

Erica Di Ruggiero

Erica Di Ruggiero
Associate Professor, Global Health and Director, Centre for Global Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

Dr. Ruggiero’s research examines how evidence affects global policy agendas related to employment, other determinants, and health equity in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. Dr. Ruggiero also studies population health interventions (policies, programs), using novel conceptual and methodological tools to conduct international comparative policy research on global social and health inequities.

Daniela Cepeda Cuadrado

Daniela Cepeda Cuadrado
Health Adviser, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre

Daniela is a public policy professional with experience working in the fields of anti-corruption, health, and sustainable development. She works as an anti-corruption adviser at the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, providing policy support to the Global Network on Anti-Corruption, Transparency, and Accountability. The network is composed by UNDP, UNODC, WHO, and the World Bank Group. Previously, Daniela worked at Transparency International Global Health in the UK as part of the Action for Global Health Network. She also worked at the United Nations where she contributed to learning and training initiatives for sustainable development.

Jonathan Cushing

Jonathan Cushing
Programme Director, Transparency International

Jonathan leads Transparency International Global Health Programme. As Director of the programme, he has led work throughout the COVID pandemic, including research into at the transparency of COVID vaccine contracts, work on increasing transparency and equity within national vaccine distribution, and advocacy efforts to ensure that transparency and anti—corruption safeguards are built into the proposed Pandemic Accord. Prior to joining Transparency International Jonathan worked for German Development Cooperation in Malawi, Bangladesh and Nepal, working with governments, CSOs and the private sector on health systems strengthening, and improving the quality of care.

Mostafa Hunter

Mostafa Hunter
Founder and President, Health Governance International

Mostafa is an international expert with 15 years of unique expertise in institutional governance, private sector engagement for public value and corruption risk management in more than 20 high-, middle- and low-income countries. He is currently Founder and President of Health Governance International LLC (HGI), USA, Lead Founder and Chairman of the Healthcare Governance and Transparency Association (HeGTA), Germany.  Mostafa is awarded the 2011 Rising Star of Corporate Governance by the Yale School of Management and in 2012 Global Proxy Watch named him a Star. Moreover, he was part of the team awarded the World Bank VPU Team Award of Excellence for 2016.

Obinna Onwujekwe

Obinna Onwujekwe
Professor, Health Economics and Policy and Pharmacoeconomics in the Departments of Health Administration & Management and Pharmacology and Therapeutics, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria

Professor Onwujekwe is a Professor of Health Economics, Systems & Policy in the Department of Health Administration and Management and a Professor of Pharmacoeconomics/Pharmacoepidemiology in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, both at the University of Nigeria. He is the Director of Research in the University of Nigeria and the Coordinator of the Health Policy Research Group. He is also the Director of the Nigerian National Centre on Health Policy and Systems, which is part of the African Health Observatory Platform (AHOP) on Health Systems. He is a member of the COVID-19 Socio-economy working group of African Scientific Research and Innovation Council of the African Union.

Mark DiBiase

Mark DiBiase
Policy Specialist, United Nations Development Programme 

Mark is a Policy Specialist in UNDP’s HIV and Health Group, advising UNDP Country Offices in the management and implementation of a $1B+ portfolio of UNDP managed Global Fund HIV, tuberculosis and malaria grants supporting treatment, care and prevention activities. He provides substantive programme and policy advisory services with a focus on capacity building for governments and NGOS, in coordination with other technical partners. Mark leads the work on anti-corruption, transparency and accountability for the health sector on behalf of UNDP HHG. Previously, Mark worked at the Global Fund, managing HIV and TB grants to South Africa and Nigeria. Mark has a Master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University.

Stany Banzimana

Stany Banzimana
Strategic and Business Development Manager, EAC Regional Centre of Excellence for Vaccines, Immunization and Health Supply Chain Management (EAC RCE-VIHSCM) and Lecturer and PhD Student, University of Rwanda-College of Business and Economics

Stany Banzimana is a Strategic and Business Development Manager for the EAC RCE-VIHSCM. Stany advises and supports the implementation of the EAC RCE-VIHSCM’s Business Plan, Stakeholders and Development Partners engagement, as well as Funds mobilization for the long-term sustainability of the Centre. The EAC RCE-VIHSCM is hosted by the University of Rwanda on behalf of the six EAC Countries (Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and South Sudan). For his PhD, Stany is assessing the impact of the Supply Chain System design for Vaccines on the overall Immunization coverage in the EAC Countries with a focus to Rwanda and Kenya in the first two years of research (2018-2020).

Andrea Bowra

Andrea Bowra
PhD Candidate, Social and Behavioural Health Sciences, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

Andrea is a PhD candidate in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Her research interests are in global health justice, drug policy, and the commercial determinants of health. Andrea’s research is supported by a Canada Graduate Scholarship, Doctoral Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Andrea’s dissertation takes up actor-network theory and visual network analysis to explore how accountability is taken up in global health systems in response to harms caused by the pharmaceutical industry. Her work centres on the specific case study of the misrepresentation and mass-marketing of OxyContin, by Purdue Pharmaceuticals, that catalyzed the overdose crisis in North America.  

Quinn Grundy

Quinn Grundy
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto and Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of Pharmacy, The University of Sydney

Dr. Quinn Grundy is an Assistant Professor with the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto and an Honorary Senior Lecturer with the School of Pharmacy and Charles Perkins Centre at The University of Sydney. Dr. Grundy’s research explores the commercial determinants of health and their impact on the delivery of health services, health evidence, and consumer health information. Dr. Grundy is the author of Infiltrating Healthcare: How Marketing Works Underground to Influence Nurses published by Johns Hopkins University Press, which details the first in-depth study of the ways that registered nurses interact with pharmaceutical and medical device company representatives. Dr. Grundy is also Associate Editor for Cochrane Evidence Synthesis & Methods Journal.

Susan Kinyeki

Susan Kinyeki
Deputy Director, Ethics & Anti-Corruption Commission of Kenya

Dr. Susan Kinyeki, PhD, has over 23 years of experience in the governance and anticorruption sectors and is currently working as a Deputy Director, Ethics & Anti-Corruption Commission of Kenya. She has professional and progressive work experience in risk management, internal investigations, quality control, digital governance, best practice compliance training, resolving conflicts of interest, and continued enhancement of an ethical corporate culture. She has also demonstrated the ability to create innovative anti-corruption tools and share lessons learned with governments, civil society, international donors, and private sector leaders in order to promote compliance, public disclosure, and accountability.

Nana Koomson

Nana Koomson 
Master's Student, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

Nana is a first-year master's student at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health in the Social and Behavioral Health Sciences Stream. She has a collaborative specialization in Global Health. As a health promotion student, she is interested in the different social, political, and economic determinants that shape corrupt behaviours.

Joel Lexchin

Joel Lexchin
Associate Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, and Professor Emeritus, School of Health Policy and Management, York University

Dr. Lexchin received his MD from the University of Toronto in 1977 and for 40 years worked as an emergency physician at the University Health Network until 2022. He is Professor Emeritus in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University and an Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto.  Dr. Lexchin has been a consultant for the province of Ontario, various arms of the Canadian federal government, the World Health Organization and the government of New Zealand. Dr. Lexchin’s most recent book Doctors in denial: why Big Pharma and the Canadian medical profession are too close for comfort was published in 2017 by Lorimer. He is listed by Stanford University’s among the world’s top 2% most widely cited scientists.

Tolulope Ojo

Tolulope Ojo
PhD Student, Institute of Health Policy and Management, University of Toronto

Tolu is a PhD student at the Institute of Health Policy and Management. She holds a master’s degree in Control of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicines. Tolu has experience in global health research and practice including leading design, implementation, and evaluation of access programs for HIV/AIDs, dengue, and maternal, newborn and child health in Nigeria, Tanzania and Thailand. Her research interests include access to medicines and health products, strengthening health systems in low-resource settings, and equity in global health.

Eustace Orleans-Lindsay

Eustace Orleans-Lindsay
PhD student, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto and Community Pharmacist, Loblaw Pharmacy in the Real Canadian Superstore (Simcoe, Ontario)

Eustace Orleans-Lindsay is a pharmacist with over 25 years experience practicing in Africa and North America. He holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy (Honours) degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, a Master of Science degree in Global Health from McMaster University and is currently a PhD Candidate at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy in the University of Toronto. His research interests include equitable access to quality assured medicines within universal health coverage systems in low-to-middle income countries.

Sheryl Spithoff

Sheryl Spithoff
Assistant Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto and Staff Physician, Women's College Hospital

Dr. Spithoff is a family physician at Women’s College Hospital and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto where she has a Clinician Scientist Research Award from the Department of Family and Community Medicine. She has an appointment as a Scientist at Women’s College Research Institute and is a Fellow at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Governance, Accountability, and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector. Dr. Spithoff leads research projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to examine the commercialization of primary care health data and to understand the nature and extent of enterprise commercial virtual care in Canada. She also has a grant from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to explore the data handling practices of commercial virtual care platforms.

Sarah Steingrüber

Sarah Steingrüber
Coordinator, Global Network on Anti-Corruption, Transparency and Accountability in Health (GNACTA), hosted by the World Health Organization

Sarah Steingrüber is a specialist in global health and anti-corruption. She is currently the Coordinator of the Global Network on Anti-Corruption, Transparency and Accountability in Health (GNACTA) hosted by the WHO. She has experience working as a consultant for other UN agencies, development organisations, think tanks, academic institutions and private entities. Sarah is an Affiliate Expert of the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Advisor of for the Partnership for Transparency Fund, Vice-Chair of the Health Governance and Transparency Association and member of the Health Systems Global Thematic Working Group on Accountability and Anti-Corruption Action.

Alison Thompson

Alison Thompson
Associate Professor, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and Member, Joint Centre for Bioethics, University of Toronto

Dr. Thompson’s research is located at the intersection of philosophy and critical sociology, within the field of public health ethics. Her program focuses on social and ethical issues to do with the use of pharmaceuticals, particularly those used to treat infectious diseases. This includes looking at the ethical issues that arise in the context of the use of pharmaceuticals in the real-world context, as opposed to in the context of clinical trials. She has developed an ethical framework for policy decision-making in the context of post-market drug safety and effectiveness policy and worked developing a notion of drug “effectiveness” for public health that includes social and ethical considerations.