Women entering politics often face significant financial challenges that can hinder their political aspirations. These barriers are compounded by systemic, cultural, and economic factors.

Running for political office often requires significant resources for campaign materials, advertising, and outreach activities.

In Ghana, women have less access to personal wealth, networks of affluent donors, and political financing compared to their male counterparts. Women also generally earn less than men, reducing their ability to self-finance campaigns. They often do not own property, such as land that could serve as collateral for loans or demonstrate financial stability.

The Ashanti Region is considered in most elections as the battleground and decider for the winner of the presidential race. As the stronghold of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the region only boasts of five females out of its forty-seven Members of Parliament of the eighth Parliament of Ghana. In the seventh parliament, the region had only four females representing. 

Although the figures have over the years improved, female candidates in the region are often set aside when it comes to securing the funds necessary for effective campaigning.

Female candidates on the ticket of the major political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and National Democratic Congress (NDC) may face significant financial barriers but it gets worse for women aspiring on lesser-known or new political parties.

Similarly to challenges faced by most female political candidates across the country, their colleagues in the Ashanti region encounter significant predicaments in bulldozing their way to a political office.

Parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) in the Asawaase constituency, Naomi Nsor, is one of the handful of female aspirants in the region clamouring for change in their constituencies.

Demand for emoluments from voters leaves her with the troubles of how to source adequate funds to finance her campaigns to win the votes of electorates.

“People are always demanding for money. They think because you are an honourable - a ranking member in society, then you must give them money,” she said.

Ambitious to bring change to her constituency, she must battle four others including the incumbent MP, Muntaka Mubarak, in the parliamentary race for the December 7 elections.

Running a successful campaign requires significant resources for media advertising, rallies, transportation, printing posters, and outreach programs.

The election campaigns squeeze the finances of aspirants and essentially demoralizes many potential candidates to rescind their decisions to contest.

The NPP parliamentary primaries held in January 2024 witnessed the highest participation of women in the Ashanti region. At least eleven women marched up against their male counterparts in various constituency, but only a handful of them were elected to lead the charge.

Claudia Lumor, a German-born Ghanaian publisher, was among the brave women who defied the odds to invest her resources into winning the hearts of the people of the Oforikrom constituency.

This came at an expensive cost of her losing huge sums of money.

“I have found this campaign process expensive. It could also be that my constituency is really big. I have almost 1200 delegates, so working within a constituency like that, you need a lot of resources to do that. It has not been easy; it’s been hard, it’s been tough. It has drained time and resources and effort and everything,” she told Evans Mensah on PM Express on the JoyNews channel after the NPP Parliamentary primaries. 

In the Ashanti Region, where political conservatism remains prevalent, women are often viewed as less capable of winning, and this belief translates into reluctance from donors to support female candidates.

Gender finance expert, Sarah Annam explains financial challenges hinder many capable women from stepping their foot in front to hold the fort.

“With more money, you’re able to reach the last mile. You can go to a large extent to do whatever you want to do with your company. But here is the woman who is able to do the same thing as the man but doesn’t have the funds to support them,” she said.

Ms. Annam is advocating for both local and foreign support for women who show characteristic capabilities to lead the charge.

“If we want to push gender parity, we must the buy-in for agencies and organisation both locally and internationally who believe in gender parity to support these women. To a large extent, they can even become financiers for these women to push them,” she said.

Ghana has set a progressive target to reach gender parity with specific percentage of women involvement in governance. The country aims to reach gender parity by 2034 (50%).

While these achievements have been instituted, Ms. Annam believes there must be an intentionality to push the women agenda despite the passage of the Affirmative Action Bill into law.

“To push these women, there must be a strategic, intentional plan to get women there,” she advised.

Addressing these challenges is critical to increasing women’s participation in politics and ensuring diverse representation in governance. There is no doubt that more needs to be done to support women financially to get involved in politics. Such efforts should include political party funding for women candidates.

Provision of public funding or subsidized services for women’s campaigns and training women on fundraising strategies and financial management for political campaigns.