{"id":55139,"date":"2020-04-17T15:00:36","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T05:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=55139"},"modified":"2020-04-17T14:47:04","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T04:47:04","slug":"is-new-zealand-really-a-wps-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/is-new-zealand-really-a-wps-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"Is New Zealand really a WPS champion?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

This article is part of ASPI\u2019s 2020 series on women, peace and security.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2018, New Zealand Defence Minister Ron Mark encouraged<\/a> countries in the Asia\u2013Pacific to \u2018identify their strengths and champion areas of expertise\u2019. He said New Zealand\u2019s strengths and areas of expertise were \u2018humanitarian assistance and disaster relief; women, peace and security; and building capability through training\u2019. So, the WPS agenda has been presented as a key area of government interest and investment, and popular rhetoric suggests that New Zealand is a staunch champion of the WPS agenda. Does the evidence support that claim?<\/p>\n

New Zealand was somewhat late to the fray in launching its first WPS national action plan, due in part to a complacent attitude that the promotion of women\u2019s empowerment and gender equality was something New Zealand already did well. When it did produce a plan<\/a>, in 2015, it focused on providing diplomatic support for WPS initiatives and enabling international deployments of New Zealand women.<\/p>\n

Proposed public reporting on WPS achievements hasn\u2019t eventuated, making evaluation of even these narrowly defined objectives tricky. The lack of information is compounded by the subjective question about how much New Zealand would need to be doing to be able to genuinely claim to be a WPS champion. Some improvements have been made, but they could also be viewed as low-hanging fruit.<\/p>\n

For example, clearly identification and allocation of resources is vital<\/a> for successful implementation of WPS action plans, but early commentary<\/a> on New Zealand\u2019s noted that the government \u2018isn\u2019t putting any money where its mouth is\u2019. The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade contributed<\/a> a total of NZ$18.2 million over the 2015\u201316 and 2017\u201318 reporting years for activities whose main aim was to further gender equality and women\u2019s empowerment, but that is just a small portion of the aid budget\u2014New Zealand\u2019s aid program is budgeted to spend NZ$2.2 billion between 2018\u201319 to 2020\u201321<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the New Zealand Police, responsibility for formulating and implementing WPS initiatives was delegated to one staff member alongside other responsibilities, and the organisation declined several opportunities to engage in WPS activities due to competing budget priorities.<\/p>\n

The NZ Army initially employed a special projects officer to oversee WPS implementation (a position that was later changed to a NZ Defence Force role) and a part-time position was added last year to better engage with the new Pacific Defence Gender Network<\/a>, launched by the defence ministry in cooperation with the government of Samoa. Some minor, and increasing, investments have been made to help promote WPS initiatives, but it\u2019s not clear whether that will be enough to support the claim that New Zealand is a \u2018champion\u2019 of the WPS agenda.<\/p>\n

The gender balances in the police force and NZDF have improved, though achievements are uneven and depend on interpretation of gains made. The number of women employed in constabulary roles and in senior ranks in the police, for example, has clearly improved in recent years. Starting from a mere 6.5% in 1989<\/a>, the proportion of women hovered at around 18% in 2015, and then in 2018 female recruits outnumbered<\/a> male recruits in some intakes.<\/p>\n

Importantly, given that the national action plan specifically focused on boosting the number of women deployed offshore, the proportion of women in international policing roles has also improved (from 17.7% in 2016 to 26.2% in 2017<\/a>). However, it\u2019s difficult to gauge how significant these changes are when so few NZ police are deployed offshore. An increase from one women to two serving in a senior role offshore acts to double the figure, for example. Similar issues arise when considering military deployments.<\/p>\n

In the NZDF, women comprised more than 20% of deployed forces in 2015, and the proportion increased over the next three years. But the deployments were small, at around 270 personnel in total. Retaining high numbers of women would be much less likely in larger deployments, and the general need to increase the number of military women remains pressing.<\/p>\n

In 2014, just before the national action plan was released, it was reported<\/a> that the number of women in military uniform had been falling for a number of years. After concerted efforts, the numbers increased a little each year from 2015 to 2018, though there were, and still are, variations between and within services. The army, in particular, has struggled\u2014female representation dropped to 12.8% in 2018<\/a>, with especially low numbers in the combat corps. Meeting the target of \u2018more women deployed\u2019 could in future be constrained by these structural realities.<\/p>\n

Evidence for the assertion that New Zealand has championed the WPS agenda is therefore patchy. So, where to from here?<\/p>\n

Discussions with police and defence personnel, reinforced by the nature of recent recruiting material, confirm that increasing women\u2019s participation is a priority for both organisations.<\/p>\n

Yet that is only one corner of the puzzle. Broader attempts to more deeply \u2018regender\u2019 government organisations\u2014which would both support increased participation of women and shift the focus to broader gender issues\u2014would deliver positive results. The Royal New Zealand Navy\u2019s headline-grabbing decision to bring in gender-neutral<\/a> grooming and appearance guidelines, as well as the awarding of a Rainbow Tick<\/a> to the NZDF, suggests that some regendering is already underway.<\/p>\n

A move away from the \u2018othering\u2019 that dominates the framing of the 2015 national action plan would also be beneficial. New Zealand currently has the worst domestic violence statistics in the OECD, and yet the action plan is all about helping others with their gender-based violence issues. Owning our own shortcomings\u2014something Canada<\/a> does better in its latest plan\u2014would serve to emphasise that gender equality does indeed remain an unrealised goal that we are all still striving for.<\/p>\n

A Strategist<\/em> article last year asked what it is that really makes for an effective national action plan. Miki Jacevic\u2019s piece<\/a> suggests that increased inclusivity, particularly of civil society, and frequent reporting are important for successful plans. These elements are still lacking in the New Zealand context and are two simple improvements that authorities can make as they look to revise the plan in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is part of ASPI\u2019s 2020 series on women, peace and security. In 2018, New Zealand Defence Minister Ron Mark encouraged countries in the Asia\u2013Pacific to \u2018identify their strengths and champion areas of expertise\u2019. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":827,"featured_media":55141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[439,73,369,1868],"class_list":["post-55139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-gender","tag-new-zealand","tag-nzdf","tag-wps","dinkus-wps-2020"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs New Zealand really a WPS champion? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/is-new-zealand-really-a-wps-champion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is New Zealand really a WPS champion? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This article is part of ASPI\u2019s 2020 series on women, peace and security. 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