What is the problem with conditions?

The conditions attached to debt relief have been disastrous for poor countries. If they do not comply with these conditions, debt relief is withheld, and cancellation delayed. Typically, the conditions include privatisation of basic services and cuts in vital public spending.

For more detail, please see our full report on the strings attached to debt cancellation.

How are strings attached?
In order to be eligible for debt cancellation, poor countries must be following policies set by the IMF. In order to actually get debt cancellation, poor countries have to meet 30 or more specific conditions: some relate to technical reforms of financial management, or meeting the government's own targets on health and education, but many are economic policy changes including widespread privatisation - of water, energy, agriculture, transport, etc - and severe cuts in public spending.

How do conditions undermine democracy?
Countries often resist implementing these policies, but are forced to adopt them even when their people protest and their parliaments oppose them. For instance, the IMF requirement that Zambia privatise its state bank in order to get debt relief prompted mass public protest, a parliamentary motion opposing the privatisation and the refusal of the President. But the IMF insisted that "if they don’t sell, they won’t get the money".

How do conditions hurt the poor?
Countless studies have shown that economic policy conditions attached to debt relief and aid have harmed indebted countries. For instance, Senegal was forced to liberalise its groundnut sector, a disastrous policy that resulted in more than two thirds of the crop not being collected, farmers collectively losing millions of dollars, economic growth being cut in half and a near state of famine in rural areas. But the World Bank and International Monetary Fund continued to insist on further liberalisation a condition of debt relief for Senegal.

How do conditions break rich governments' promises?
The UK’s has promised not to attach economic policy conditions to aid it gives directly to poor countries, saying it is "inappropriate and ineffective for donors to impose policies". The Commission for Africa questioned the role of conditions, for instance stating that "forced liberalisation will not work" as a way of reducing poverty. The 2005 G8 communiqué stated that "developing countries…need to decide, plan and sequence their economic policies." Despite this, debt relief and cancellation granted by the World Bank and IMF - which the UK helps to fund - still has huge numbers of damaging conditions attached. The UK is also using implementation of World Bank conditions as the criteria for deciding which countries will get the additional debt relief it is now offering.

How do conditions undermine accountability?
Jubilee Debt Campaign supports efforts to ensure that governments are accountable to their own people over how they spend the funds released by debt cancellation. Some countries have successful mechanisms in place; in others, campaigners are calling for greater accountability, and their efforts and calls should be reinforced. But that is not what these conditions achieve; instead, they impose detailed economic policies onto poor countries that often harm the poor and benefit those in the rich world.

Please write to or email UK politicians to protest at these conditions, or see our campaign report for more information.