One of the major challenges related to money in politics is the lack of transparency surrounding political party and electoral finance.
This is the case across the world and applies to established and newer democracies alike. Information on political party and candidate income and expenditure is rarely published online in a searchable and user-friendly manner.
Transparency can be greatly increased by introducing a system where political parties and candidates file reports online to the political finance oversight agency, with the data then publicly available in the form of a searchable database on the agency’s website. This data gives voters a more informed picture of where parties and candidates get their money from and how they spend it, as well as assisting the work of civil society organizations and journalists to hold them accountable.
Currently, only a small number of countries have political finance online reporting and disclosure systems in place. International IDEA has collected their experiences and lessons learned from building their systems and consolidated it into this Guide. The hope is that the knowledge contained here will help other oversight agencies interested in building similar systems in their countries.