Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung@ 40 in Ghana materials to voters, election officials and political party agents. In this vein, FES in 1992 supported the Commission to print and distribute 200,000 copies of“A Guide to the Voter”, 60,000 copies of“A Guide to the Candidate” and 120,000 copies of “Manual for Election Staff and Polling Agents”. Again, 1996 and 2000, FES, in collaboration with the Commission published reference material(Guidelines for the conduct of elections) for all stakeholders in the electoral process and developed and launched the“Code of Conduct for Political Parties” respectively. Furthermore, in 2007, the Commission with support from FES developed and published the “Framework for Domestic Election Observation” for the use of Domestic Election Observers in election monitoring. Together, these publications are supposed to build confidence in the electoral system as well as consolidating Ghana's young democracy. Public Funding of Political Parties The existence of viable and vibrant political parties is a necessary condition for the deepening of multi-party democracy and good governance. In recognition of the critical role funding plays in building vibrant political parties, FES in collaboration with the Commission organised an International Conference on“Public Financing of Political Parties” in Accra in 1995 and thus initiated the debate on this issue in the country. This conference has since been followed by a number of fora, workshops, studies and IPAC meetings on“Enhanced Public Support for Political Parties”. Following IPAC meeting in July, 2009 which endorsed the criteria by which political parties will access the fund and its management structure, the Commission presented a Memorandum to President Mills on“Enhanced Public Support for Political Parties” which is the result of several consultations with the political parties organised by the Commission and FES. The memorandum reads in part“it is in the light of the decisions taken at the Akosombo meetings that the Commission is sending the memorandum towards enabling Your Excellency to bring the matter of 14