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The United Nations (UN) has long been seen as one of the world's most influential organisations in the movement for gender equality. The UN is unique in its ability to produce binding inter-governmental normative frame-works which have led to legislative and policy reform at the national level, including in New Zealand. The UN has also played an important role through its research, advocacy and programmes. However, during the 2000s many gender equality advocates became increasingly concerned with the gap between policy and practice and the significant weaknesses within the UN system. In particular, the UN has been criticised for providing inadequate resourcing, capacity support and senior-level espousal for its gender architecture. In New Zealand, UNIFEM's weak presence and low capacity to provide technical support to the government and visible advocacy exemplifies the UN's past inability to support gender equality at the national level. It is hoped that the recent establishment of UN Women in January 2011 will alleviate many of the issues related to the UN's gender architecture and signal a new era for the UN's work on gender equality. This paper explores the core reasons for the imperative reform of the UN's gender architecture. The paper then analyses whether UN Women has the necessary scope and funding to address the UN's past failings and deliver tangible results. A strong UN agency with country-level capacity in New Zealand would ill a gap within New Zealand civil society for a leading specialist organisation for gender equality that not only supports governmental and civil society efforts in New Zealand, but also contributes to equality within the wider Pacific community. Therefore the paper then outlines steps for action for New Zealand civil society organisations to ensure that UN Women lives up to its potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journey mapped herein is based on a women's studies conference paper written and presented in 1999 (Waitere-Ang & Johnston, 1999) . When we (Hine and Trish) wrote the paper, we worked together in Te Uru Marau-rau: the Department of Māori and Multicultural Education at Massey University. A decade later Hine works in the Masters of Educational Administration Programme at Massey and Patricia is a professor and the Head of the Graduate School at Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiārangi, a 'Indigenous University" in Whakatane. Engaging the original paper we create a reflexive dialogue in which we work to connect tacit knowing to explicit knowledge (Cunliffe, 2002). As we re-enter a conversation that decried the absence of mana wahine in institutional spaces, uppermost in our thinking as we look back and talk forward is the question -- what has changed for us? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite strong legislative protection, sexual harassment is still prevalent in New Zealand and thus remains an impediment to the full achievement of women's human rights as well as undermining the mental and physical well-being of a woman. This paper focuses on sexual harassment in New Zealand universities. Universities are a critical part of modern society not just for teaching and research but also as a place where new generations of leaders will emerge. We undertook a survey of New Zealand university websites to test and compare the ease by which a student who thinks they may be experiencing sexual harassment, could find out about the policies and support services available to them. We highlight the failings found with many websites and make recommendations for improving access to this vital information. We argue that comprehensive sexual harassment information must be made more visible to prevent the acceptance and normalisation of sexually harassing behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]