Last year was a busy one for NCWNZ!

This 2023-24 Impact Report brings together a summary of the work that's been done by Te Kaunihera Wāhine o Aotearoa National Council of Women of New Zealand across the country, in Branches, Action Hubs and by the Board and National Office. It shows how we're making an impact through our work and our influence, and builds a foundation for how we'll make further progress in the coming financial year. 

Impact through research and influence

We released the latest round of results from our biennial Gender Attitudes Survey, which unfortunately showed that we still have a lot of work to do to achieve gender equality. It is especially concerning that there is a persistent minority who feel it is acceptable to dominate women with violence, both in-person and online. The Online Safety Coalition was formed as a collaboration between NCWNZ Action Hubs and other organisations to campaign for strengthened legislation for online safety – watch the third Countering Misogyny webinar for background. NCWNZ Action Hubs continue to campaign for better stalking legislation and strengthened consent education in schools, to create a safer world for women and girls. On the theme of a better world, the Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Action Hub had a paper published, on climate change through a gender lens.

Democracy in action

NCWNZ was active in promoting democracy during the lead up to the elections in 2023. Local branches supported and encouraged women candidates to run for Parliament and arranged candidate meetings to enable women to hear the candidates views. At a national level the Action Hubs compiled a list of questions on gender equality and women’s issues for the political parties, and published their answers. Since the election, the Board provided a Briefing to the Incoming Minister for Women, and sent this to many of the new MPs followed up with a series of meetings to establish working relationships for this new Parliamentary term.

Raising visibility

We have also been promoting a diverse range of women through various initiatives, with the aim of building awareness of the mana of women. Beryl Anderson has been monitoring the gender equality of New Zealand honours for some years now, highlighting women recipients and those honoured for supporting women. Wellington branch hosted a Gender Equal NZ speaker series. Our Communications Team compiled a list of International Women’s Day events that was widely shared, including by the Ministry for Women. We also continue to promote and support events offered by our Branches and Action Hubs, adding event videos to our growing YouTube channel.

Collaboration at home and internationally

Our progress this year meant we could plan our first in-person conference for some years, to be held in Ōtautahi Christchurch on Saturday 5 October. We have been collaborating with Te Rōpū Wāhine Māori Toko I Te Ora | The Māori Women’s Welfare League to develop NGO reports for the CEDAW Committee, and to send a representative to Geneva in October. The Pacific NCWs online forum we organised in conjunction with NCW Australia was a successful start to re-building relationships across the Pacific, and we look forward to more engagement with these valuable Pacific partners. 

...and more!

You can see more about our mahi on our Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube pages, as well as in our media releases and news items on our News page. 

This is a small sample of how NCWNZ amplifies the voices of our organisational and individual members so that policy makers and others hear the concerns of the women of Aotearoa. We will continue to work hard to make gender equality reality, and we thank our members and those who donate to NCWNZ for continuing to make this possible.