Manatū Wāhine Ministry for Women advises the Government and work alongside others to represent diverse voices and improve the lives of women and girls in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Our mission is to drive improvements for women and girls and support them to succeed.
We provide system leadership with partners and stakeholders to improve outcomes for women and girls, and deliver a range of services and tools to increase women and girls’ leadership, participation, safety, and wellbeing in society.
To achieve this, we have four strategic priorities to drive improvements for all women and girls:
- Economic empowerment: ensuring all women and girls have economic security and independence, supporting them to thrive.
- Representation and leadership: building meaningful participation for women and girls at every level of society.
- Safety: supporting women and girls to be safe from all forms of violence.
- Wellbeing: supporting women and girls to have good health and wellbeing.
In addition to our four priority areas, we are committed to working with wāhine Māori to progress shared goals and aspirations, while our international work protects and promotes the rights of women and girls.
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
We are committed to upholding the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and working in partnership with Māori to advance shared goals and aspirations.
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 2.6 million women and girls in Aotearoa New Zealand. 68.2% of women identified as being of New Zealand European descent, 17.4% identified as Māori, 8.6% as Pacific, 17.5% 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 supporting organisations to measure and report on their gender pay gaps through the gender pay gap toolkit.
- Supporting women and their employers gain practical tools and strategies to act against instances of online harm through the free to lead toolkit.
- Monitoring women's labour market participation.
- Leading the provision of gender analysis across government, including through 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.
- 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 Investment, Associate Minister of Agriculture (Horticulture), and Associate Minister for ACC.
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.
Read our 2024 Annual Report that outlines our organisation’s progress against our key priorities and financial statements to 30 June 2024.