Supporting Political Finance Transparency and Anticorruption
Online Campaigning Transparency Community of Practice Event
IFES supports efforts by European stakeholders to counter corruption in the political process and to prevent, detect and sanction political finance violations. As part of this work, IFES through its Regional Europe Office (REO) supports public institutions mandated to oversee political finance compliance across Europe to promote effective oversight and transparency. The purpose of this assistance is to allow members of these institutions to share experiences on challenges and solutions in political finance oversights, on issues such as how to receive and review information from parties and candidates, ensure compliance with various regulations, how to verify the eligibility of donations and how to ensure the timely submission and publication of financial reports. Since 2018 IFES REO has convened eight meetings of regional political finance institutions and experts, bringing together 96 participants (65% women) representing 15 countries, and as a result of these engagements, IFES has developed the groundbreaking Oversight, toolkit for political finance institutions.
IFES also support civil society actors in monitoring and raising awareness of money in politics. A key result of this support has been Vote for Free: A Global Guide for Citizen Monitoring of Campaign Finance, which draws on the experience of groups from across Europe and beyond and aims to support any group in how to develop political finance monitoring methodologies that fit their context. IFES also gathers experts and carries out research, which for example has led to FORT – political finance oversight database, with detailed information about how oversight functions in different European countries.
A 2019 expert meeting led to the development of Principles on transparency in political finance, which were later recommended by the UNODC Oslo statement on corruption involving vast quantities of assets. Finally, the IFES-supported Global Online Campaigning Transparency Community of Practice provides a forum for oversight institutions, civil society and academics to share experience and cutting-edge solutions on increasing our knowledge about online campaigning and advertising.