The inherent imbalance of aid contracts encourages the imposition of conditions which reflect donor prejudices for appropriate social, political and economic management. The most notorious conditionality has imposed the western model of minimum state control over an economy, closely followed by the demand for "good governance", a political template involving free and fair elections, an assault on corruption and human rights violations, and an unencumbered press, judiciary and civil society.

Iraqi boy sits on food aid © Environment News Service (ENS)

Critics have been concerned that such conditions infringe on the sovereignty of the recipient country but donors point to evaluations which conclude that aid works best in countries which pursue sound economic policies backed by transparent institutions of government. This argument cannot however justify the practice known as "tied aid" which lnks donor country corporations to implementation of the aid project, opening the way to inappropriate or overpriced contracts. A 2005 Oxfam/ActionAid report suggested that 40% of ODA remains "tied". One extreme example is the continued US insistence that food aid be sourced from its own farmers rather than cash, thereby incurring expensive shipping costs and delivery delays. Such circularity draws attention to the potential for aid to turn in on itself and generate greater benefit to the donor than the recipient.

Other conditions are more insidious; it is believed that the US has obliged over 100 recipient countriesto grant immunity to US nationals from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Likewise, generous US funding of HIV/AIDS programmes is rarely separated from its government’s perspective on family and sexual morality. In many countries the sudden development of a sports stadium or government building as a "gift" may have more to do with promises of support in a crucial UN vote than altruism. Such are the vicissitudes of converting the human concept of charity into the international domain.

Ironically the most recent dramatic change in aid flows threatens to undermine the whole panoply of aid conditionality. The massive investment of China in Africa is explicitly unconditional, whilst wholly tied to its commercial interest in natural resources. This lack of small print has alarmed the international aid establishment but gained the gratitude of African leaders such as Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal who has written of the “slow and sometimes patronising approach of (western donors)”.

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