Political Finance Reform As Tool To Promote Gender Inclusive Democracy

According to Yukihiko Hamada in this very insightful article on finance reform and gender in democracy,

While varying socio-economic differences exist among women, a lack of access to sufficient political funding, both from their own parties and from external funding networks, is often pointed out as a major obstacle to their participation in politics. In order to promote women’s political participation, International IDEA has been advocating for gender-targeted public funding. By linking the amount of public funding to the level of gender equality among the candidates that a political party puts up for election or earmarking a certain portion of public funding for gender related activities, political finance regulations could support women’s participation in politics. Currently 70 per cent of countries in the world provide direct public funding to political parties. Of those with public funding system, approximately 30 countries have gender-targeted public funding, including Albania, Brazil, Costa Rica, France, Georgia, Kenya and South Korea.

Read the full article here.