Additional information about gender quotas

Inter-Parlamentary Union, (2021). "Women in Parliament in 2020 The Year in Review". 

According to the Law on Quotas adopted in 2009, parties are required to include at least 30% women on their lists of candidates for the National Assembly and municipal elections. This law was implemented for the first time in the 2012 legislative and municipal elections, when the interpretation of the Law on Quotas by many political parties was that at least 30% of all candidates nominated by each political party must have been women, instead of 30% women candidates per party list in each electoral constituency (Inter-Parliamentary Union 2013).

As non-compliance with the quota requirements does not entail the annulment of the list but rather financial sanctions, and as the law does not provide for a ranking order requirement, only 16% of the elected members of the National Assembly in the 2012 elections were women.

“Burkina Faso’s 2009 legislated candidate quota law was revised in January ahead of the 2020 elections. The revision included a legislated 30 per cent candidate quota for party lists of both primary and secondary elected positions (“titulaires” and “suppléants”) using a zebra placement system. The lack of such placement rules had been identified as a factor in the low success of quotas in previous elections. However, a trade-off was made on sanction rules. Sanctions for non-compliance (loss of 50 per cent of public funding) were removed and only incentive measures were retained (20 per cent additional funding for parties that met the target)" (Inter-Parlamentary Union 2021).