ABSTRACT
Conditionality is as old as aid itself. What has varied over the years is both the prominence of conditionality as an explicit issue in develop ment assistance and the various dimensions of the issue vvhich have been highlighted at different stages of aid history. In the 1980s, condi tionality vvas mostly discussed in the context of structural adjustment programmes propounded by the Bretton Woods institutions. Since the end of the Cold War, a ‘new political conditionality’ emphasising human rights has been added to the already vast paraphernalia of development assistance.
