In the terminology of the International Monetary Fund, "conditionality" refers to the policies the Fund expects a member to follow in order to be able to avail itself of credit from the Fund (Gold, 1979). Over the years, major changes in the landscape surrounding the Fund and in the situation of its members have brought about important changes in the content of conditionality. These changes have been most pronounced in the 1980s, and they have led to a gradual, but cumulatively fundamental, change in the Fund's relations with its borrowing members over the past decade — with further changes likely in the 1990s.

1.1 The impact of changing economic conditions

One major change affecting the Fund's conditionality has been the narrowing down of the Fund's clientele to its developing members. The Fund had been conceived as an institution to which any of its members could be expected to turn for temporary financing when faced with balance-of-payments difficulties. The main ...