Our Work

From 2004-2009 the Ministry’s policy programme has been guided by the Action Plan for New Zealand. The five-year Action Plan was a whole-of government plan to improve the circumstances of New Zealand women.  The major goals were to:

• Improve the economic independence of women (economic sustainability)
• Achieve greater work-life balance for families (work-life balance)
• Improve the quality of life of New Zealand women (well-being).

Women make up just over half of our population, and a wide variety of factors impact on how well women are doing. As a result, no one government agency is responsible for women’s outcomes. The Action Plan provided a means of co-ordinating the efforts of a range of agencies in relation to different areas, such as health, education, employment, and safety.

A report published by the Ministry in 2008 Indicators for Change: Tracking the progress of New Zealand women used indicators to track progress towards achieving the Action Plan’s goals. The indicators provide information on the current social and economic status of women and will be updated over time.

Our work consists of:

Policy Advice

We provide policy advice to government on issues that impact on women.

To give this advice to government we work closely with public service colleagues, with Māori women, iwi, hapū and whānau, with non-government organisations, women’s groups, and international agencies.

Nominations

We provide suitable women nominees for state sector boards and committees.

International

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs is the lead agency for managing New Zealand’s international obligations on the status of women.

In particular, we manage New Zealand’s process for reporting on its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

We achieve our work by:

progress and stepping in to refocus effort upon outcomes for women

policy processes when mainstream agencies are not active in a critical area or where additional complementary leadership is needed

through assisting with policy processes led by mainstream agencies

by providing suitable nominees for state sector governance boards.

Last updated 1 October 2009