ABSTRACT
North-South relations changed dramatically during the 1980s and early 1990s. Foreign aid was increasingly made conditional, its provi sion being dependent on policy reforms. The major difference in the new conditionality was a massive advance in scope and emphasis. Whereas previously conditions had their primary justification in the effectiveness and efficiency of aid within the limited confines of a project or a programme (in addition to concerns related to the donor’s self-interest, involving tied aid), the new generations conditionality entered the domestic political arena of the recipient at a higher level, more directly and with fewer inhibitions. The first generation, on its rails in the late 1970s, was initiated and driven by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and was aimed at eco nomic policy reform. The second generation, starting in the late 1980s, aimed at political reform involving both systemic and substantive aspects.
