My party at the federal level has long had an established fund to which women can apply , women may use these funds for child care, clothing etc. At the local level, when I retired , a fund to support women candidates was formed, again, women can apply for their needs.. Members of the party, or non members can donate to these funds and receive a charitable donation receipt ( which Revenue Canada allows to count as a deduction on income tax forms on a percentage basis)

In the Czech Republic there are no "registration fees" both for political parties and for so called "independent groupings" to apply for the election. The financial burden is thus removed to the campaign financing. This financing is supported mainly by the party - when the candidate wants to highlight him/herself she/he can pay his/her own campaign in order to get preference votes. In this area there are no financial incentives for women candidates. The only financial incentive that works in the Czech Republic was introduced by the Czech Social Democrats one year ago. The party provides financial incentives for local organisations that prove the relatively highest growth figure (within one year) of women members. No other financial strategies exist in the area... Eva M. Hejzlarova Forum 50 % as a Czech NGO which is focused on women in politics. www.padesatprocent.cz hejzlarova@padesatprocent.cz

There have been various experiments around the world that have attempted to alter aspects of party financing to encourage the selection of female candidates. Some of these efforts have produced mixed results, however, suggesting that campaigns for reform should take care to consider how the shape of a particular reform will in fact affect the nomination of women. In France, the new electoral law passed in 2000 requires that parties nominate equal numbers of women and men to a wide range of political offices. For most of these elections, the penalty for non-compliance is rejection of the party list; perhaps not surprisingly, there is a high rate of compliance with the quota law. For elections to the National Assembly, however, the penalty for non-compliance is financial: parties lose a proportion of their funding from the state, amounting to 50% of the gap between their percentages of male and female candidates (for example, nominating 45% women and 55% men equals a 10 point gap, and thus a 5% reduction in state funding). The system of elections, however, involves two rounds: parties are penalized in the first round for presenting unequal numbers of male and female candidates, but in the second round, the gain state funding proportional to their share of the seats in the Assembly. This structure led to some curious results. Small parties, who were less likely to reach the second round, presented roughly equal numbers of women and men in the first round, as a means to avoiding losing too much of their state funding. Large parties, in contrast, were more likely to reach the second round and win seats; as a result, they were better able to 'afford' nominating a higher proportion of men. The amount of revenue lost by the two major parties was not small, amounting to a loss of millions of euros each year, but evidently, both parties felt that nominating men would enable them to win more seats (their perception, and one that has been disproved by the available research on this topic). As a result, the proportion of women elected in 2002 increased just one point, from 11% to 12%. This proportion went up again minimally in 2007 to 18%. Aware of these problems, however, a new financing law was introduced in 2007 (to be applied for the first time in the next parliamentary elections), which would increase the financial penalty from 50% to 75%. It remains to be seen what the effects of this reform will be, but its passage indicates a recognition that the earlier reform was not effective: large parties in particular were less likely to be concerned about its effects. Another case of unintended effects can be seen in the case of Nigeria. There, candidates have to pay a fee to the parties in order to be nominated as candidates (similar registration fees exist in other countries as well; sometimes the one to be paid is the party, other times it is an electoral commission or similar body). Recognizing that this system prevented women from coming forward as candidates, because they have less access to financial resources, various groups mobilized for this fee to be waived for women. Once the reform was passed, however, this provision was used by the parties as a reason *not* to nominate women (or at least, to be less enthusiastic about their campaigns, complaining that it showed that women were 'less committed' to the party). As such, the financial reform that was intended to benefit women in fact ending up harming their prospects as candidates. These examples are not meant to show that financial reforms are not worth pursuing; they are simply offered to make the point that it is important to consider what the unintended effects of these reforms may be -- and to ensure that such measures are designed in a way that does not permit 'escape clauses' or 'backlash' effects. On a more positive note, a promising idea for reform -- proposed in several places, but recently passed in Morocco -- is to offer financial incentives to parties for nominating more women. In Morocco, the interior minister announced in early October that the government would award funds to parties that elect the most female candidates in local elections that will take place in June 2009. While details of the system have not yet been released, it is worth noting that the provision will address the number of women who win office (not simply those who are nominated). As such, it aims to encourage parties to put women in 'winnable' positions. This will most likely lead to the election of greater numbers of women, even if it will not prevent other problems faced by women in political office, like tokenism. Mona Lena Krook Assistant Professor Washington University in St. Louis http://krook.wustl.edu