Hello.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today.
You've asked us two questions about what New Zealand does to monitor the use of gender-based analysis in government processes, and also our view on what works to measure the impacts of government policies and programs in creating more equitable results.
I'll start by making the connection with our colleagues in Belgium. All government departments, every time a piece of policy is lodged with a cabinet committee that considers social policy advice, they have been required for nearly a decade to undertake gender analysis and reflect this in a gender implication statement. It's a ministry. The ministry for women used to provide gender analysis training.
I'd like to be honest with you, often the gender implication statement is done right at the end before the paper is submitted. With the gender analysis training we did, we had upwards of 500 policy analysts working on a range of issues across government. That evidence shows that the one-day training, or even the two-day training, was not being effective. While we think it's important to keep the gender implication statement, because it sends a powerful signal, it means somewhere in the process there is a benchmark with women when gender issues are considered. We've taken a different approach evolving to it as well.
In the ministry for women, we have what's called “a second opinion policy advice role,” which means we have the ability to comment on policy initiatives as they develop. We think we can be most effective by being quite targeted about where we would put our time and energy, so we can involve ourselves in policy processes right at the beginning, when we think we have the most gender impact. This seems to work for us well, so by the time the paper comes to SOC, a gender analysis is completely embedded in a policy process.
We've also found there are areas across government where we can make more of a difference and more impact, and perhaps that's more important to do. We work alongside our colleagues in a partnered process, and we're very technical, I guess, in where we put our resources. It's a macro-level in terms of monitoring the impact of government policies. We at the ministry have a statement of intent, which is a public accountability document that monitors how well we are doing and the how the government is doing across a series of indicators.
We also are about to produce an indicators report about the status of women in New Zealand that is overt across the priorities, and across what is happening, so each year we can be open about what is happening, and of course all of us are considering how we report at the SDG 5. As a country, we're taking it very seriously, as well.
In terms of our whole government, and in terms of how we are arranged and operating, we have some hard targets. The government has a 45% target for the number of women on state sector boards. We can happily report that we've just made 33.7%, which is the highest number ever, and there's a huge energy around this target.
For our other policy areas, we have a series of what are called better public services targets—we can provide more information around this—which guide our social and economic policy. In each of those, there is a gender component. For example, there are a series that are about the education levels young people achieve. We have worked hard to make sure there is a gender analysis that's at a very macro and strategic level within government. The ministry can be true to these with some specific projects that are completely focused on women.
If I would leave you a few key messages, it would be we think it's important to have the benchmarks or the rigour around a gender implication statement, but our experiences are that we have to move further than this. We find that, particularly as a ministry, we get results by working with and alongside our colleagues in the policy area right at the beginning. We are focused and targeted on what will yield the most results or the best progress for a women in gender issues in New Zealand. This model very much aligns with our indigenous peoples' philosophies about what it is to be a leader, to walk alongside others, and to advance as we go.
Would you like to comment some more on this?