Aid to developing countries nearly always comes with conditions attached; Southern Governments must adhere to these conditions in order to receive their funding. Even if some measures are necessary to ensure that money will not be misappropriated, a large number of donors impose specific economic policies on developing countries, determining fiscal and monetary choices and pushing for privatization of essential services and for other controversial policies such as trade liberalisation.
Civil society organizations
(CSOs) have campaigned to stop development agencies imposing economic policy conditions as part of aid. Donors’ economic policy conditions are politically intrusive, undermine democratic oversight and fail to take into account the national context. After much debate, some development agencies have claimed that they will reduce conditions and only apply them to areas that will aid poverty reduction. However, recent official and civil society reports show a lack of progress in this area.
