The Ministry was established in July 2021. We are the Government’s chief advisor on Ethnic Communities and their inclusion in New Zealand society.
Our strategic priorities and outcomes
We developed our operational priorities and outcomes after extensive consultation with New Zealand’s Ethnic Communities.
Our approach
The Ministry is a small agency with 62.1 full-time equivalent roles (including permanent and fixed-term staff). We have offices in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch.
Given the breadth of the needs of, and opportunities for, Ethnic Communities, our work programme could span the full range of the Government’s usiness. As a result, demands on our resources are high. So we need to make deliberate choices to focus on areas that are critical to achieving the Government’s priorities and are important to Ethnic Communities.
While we have a proactive work programme, meeting and reacting to immediate needs inevitably shapes some aspects of the Ministry’s work. For example, supporting our communities during emergencies (such as the North Island Severe Weather Events) to ensure that specific needs were addressed. We were able to share lessons with other government agencies about how effective ethnic service providers were in supporting communities during the Covid-19 pandemic and following the Auckland flooding.
Our governance arrangements
The Ministry is a departmental agency of DIA, which means it is operationally independent. The Ministry is headed by our Chief Executive, who is directly responsible to you for our activities and performance.
Under our departmental agreement, DIA provides corporate services, such as the provision of information technology, property, finance and human resources. DIA also administers our appropriation (Supporting Ethnic Communities Multi-Category Appropriation) within Vote Internal Affairs.
Our structure and functions
We have a simple structure. n addition to the Chief E ecutive’s Office, we have three business units: one that is government-facing, one community- facing and corporate services.
Below sets out the functions of each business unit.
Business Unit: Government-facing Advisory, Analytics and Ministerial.
Functions:
- Security and Resilience
- Ministerial Services
- Government Relations and Advisory
- Analytics, Monitoring and Evaluation
Business Unit: Community-facing Strategic Engagement and Stakeholder Insights
Functions:
- Strategic Stakeholder Engagement
- Strategic Programmes
Business Unit: Corporate Services
Functions:
- Ethnic Communities Development Fund (ECDF)
- Governance, Reporting, Communications, Finance, and Human Resources
More details on our functions are set out in Appendix B.
Contact details for the Executive Leadership team are provided in Appendix C.
Our current programme of work
The Ministry's current programme of work is focused on economic growth, security and resilience, social cohesion and wellbeing, and all-ofgovernment services. We keep our ears to the ground. One of our key strengths is the extensive relationships of trust we have built with ethnic and faith community leaders, ethnic business councils and other critical stakeholders in this sector. We work in tandem with them to deliver our work.
Current intended key deliverables for 2025 are set out in Appendix D.
Officials are available to meet at your convenience to discuss your priorities and areas of interest and shape our programme of work accordingly.
Economic growth
We engage with a broad range of stakeholders such as ethnic business leaders and entrepreneurs, ethnic business councils, private sector organisations and government agencies to build consensus on the critical economic priorities for Ethnic Communities. For example, the Ethnic Xchange conference highlighted a range of issues that ethnic businesses raised about barriers and opportunities that they would like to tackle to help them make a bigger economic contribution to New Zealand. We look forward to discussing these with you.
Security and resilience
Our work aims to understand the nature and impact of foreign interference, support and enhance community resilience and public sector capability. It deliberately takes a social cohesion (rather than a securitised) approach. As a result of this approach, there is high interest internationally in our work, as the only other country taking a similar approach is Australia.
Social cohesion and wellbeing
Delivering targeted programmes, gathering stakeholder insights, and empowering Ethnic Communities through funding support enables us to foster a sense of belonging to, and integration with, New Zealand society.
All-of-government services
We develop practical tools and resources and provide advice to build inter-cultural capability and influence the policy and service design of other agencies. The aim is to ensure government services are accessible to, and meet specific needs of, Ethnic Communities.
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