Manatū Wāhine Ministry for Women is the Government’s principal advisor on improving the lives of wāhine women and kōtiro girls in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Our mission is to drive improvements for women and girls and support them to succeed.
We are here to make a difference for the communities we serve in Aotearoa New Zealand by ensuring the voices of women and girls are heard and their perspectives are included in the development of government policy and initiatives.
We act as a catalyst for change by providing system leadership with partners and stakeholders, including Māori, Pacific peoples, and diverse communities, to improve outcomes for women and girls.
We provide and deliver a range of services, tools, and advice to increase women and girls’ leadership, participation, safety, and wellbeing in society.
To achieve this vision, our mission is to drive improvements for all women and girls through focusing on four strategic outcomes.
- Social and economic wellbeing: all women and girls enjoy economic security and thrive throughout their lives.
- Participation: all women and girls fully participate in society.
- Safety: all women and girls are safe from all forms of violence.
- Wāhine Māori: Wāhine Māori have improved outcomes.
These outcomes require us to look at women and girls in all their diversity to understand more about how we can improve the lives of women and girls across Aotearoa New Zealand.
What we do
At Manatū Wāhine, we focus on issues of significance from a gendered perspective that are priorities for the Minister for Women and the Government. We work alongside other government agencies and organisations to ensure their work will improve the outcomes for women and girls in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Manatū Wāhine is focused on finding solutions to complex issues, such as addressing the gender pay gap, women’s underrepresentation in leadership, and ending family violence and sexual violence, which have had a significant impact on women and girls for a long time.
We are committed Te Tiriti o Waitangi and to working in partnership
Manatū Wāhine Ministry for Women is committed to assist to fulfil our Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations. We support our people to have the capability and confidence to improve outcomes for wāhine and kōtiro Māori in their work and to build effective partnerships with Māori.
We represent all women
Manatū Wāhine represents the interests of all women, including transgender women, and we recognise the right of all people to self-identify. We acknowledge the diversity of women and girls in Aotearoa New Zealand, and focus on improving outcomes for wāhine Māori, Pacific women, migrant women, women who are former refugees, women with disabilities, and the rainbow community.
As of 2023, there were 2.5 million women and girls in Aotearoa New Zealand. 68.3% of women identified as being of New Zealand European descent, 17.7% identified as Māori, 8.7% as Pacific, 17.2% as Asian, and 1.8% as Middle Eastern, Latin American, or African.
We aim to ensure that we reflect the views and the varied experiences of Aotearoa New Zealand women and girls and incorporate this into our policy initiatives and advice.
Our current work programme:
- Provision of advice to the Minister for Women.
- Working to address the gender pay gap by developing and supporting organisations to measure and report on their gender pay gaps through the gender pay gap toolkit.
- Monitoring women's labour market participation.
- Leading the provision of gender analysis across government (including the Bringing Gender In tool).
- Analysing data and undertaking research on key issues affecting women and girls.
- Supporting women to be nominated and appointed to public sector boards and committees.
- Coordinating the Crown's response to Wai 2700 – Mana Wāhine Kaupapa Inquiry in partnership with Te Puni Kōkiri.
- Supporting the implementation of Te Aorerekura - the National Strategy for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence and Action Plan.
- Leading the Government’s international reporting commitments in relation to the status of women on Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).
- Providing support to the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Women (NACEW).
The Minister for Women is Hon Nicola Grigg. She is also the Minister of State for Trade and the Associate Minister of Agriculture (Horticulture).
Find out more about our leadership team.
Read our Statement of Intent for 2024-2028 that sets out our priorities and ambitions as a Ministry for the next four years. Our website will be updated over the coming months to reflect these priorities.
Read our 2024 Annual Report that outlines our organisation’s progress against our key priorities and financial statements to 30 June 2024.