Wahine Māori Chosen To Advise The Director General Of The World Trade Organisation

Te Taumata Māori Trade Board Member and Businesswoman, Tania Te Whenua (Tūhoe, Te Whakatōhea) has been appointed to the inaugural World Trade Organisation (WTO) Civil Advisory Board. Tania will join eight other non-government leaders from across the world to meet bienually with World Trade Organisation Director General Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to bring diverse views and insights to some of the most pressing crisis that the world is facing and which impact trade and global economic stability.

The appointment is credit to the wisdom that Māori and New Zealand have to offer on an international platform. It follows Dr Okonjo-Iweala’s fleeting visit to New Zealand in November 2022 where she met Ms Te Whenua alongside wahine Māori businesswomen Karleen Everett Te Kaitohu Rautaki, Head of Māori Strategy, ANZ, Lynell Tuffrey, Tumu Whakahaere, Managing Partner, Kahui Legal and Pania Tyson-Nathan, Chief Executive, NZ Māori Tourism to emphasise the importance of indigenous voices and women being heard at the WTO and discuss opportunities to increase this.

The visit formed part of a broader visit to the region including to Bali for the G20 Summit, Fiji to meet with Pacific Trade Ministers, and Australia. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was accompanied by Senior Advisors Tomochika (Tomo) Uyama, and Stephen Fevrier, and Nicole Mensa, Special Assistant and Advisor on Gender.

As the co-author of a book entitled, “Women in leadership, real lives, real lessons” Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala anticipated her roundtable discussion with wāhine Māori businesswomen as a highlight of her visit to the region. Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala herself is the first woman and first African to lead the WTO as Director-General. She is a global finance expert, an economist and international development professional with over 30 years of experience serving twice as Nigeria's Finance Minister (2003-2006 and 2011-2015) whilst briefly acted as Foreign Minister in 2006, the first woman to hold both positions. She had a 25-year career at the World Bank as a development economist, rising to senior ranks.

Ms Te Whenua said the meeting was a “huge success” whereby the group were able to “spotlight the intrinsic nature of Māori culture which has long since acknowledge the mana of Māori women as political, social and economic leaders within Te Ao Māori, alongside Māori men.”

“Under the tikanga of gender duality, mana tāne and mana wāhine doesn’t compete, it supplements”.

Against this backdrop the group went on to outline the continued importance of wahine Māori in business leadership, owning up to 40 percent of Māori small enterprises today.

“We made the point that this statistic is particularly compelling when you take into account the number of compounding challenges that wāhine Māori face in business, both as women and as Māori. On top of that, this figure excludes the significant number of iwi enterprises which are led by wahine Māori CEOs and Board Members. It’s a statistic to be celebrated.”

The group highlighted that, the success of wahine Māori in business leadership was “due to our unwavering resolve to hold fast to our tikanga and lead our businesses in a way which has underpinned a trend which the Reserve Bank describes as a shift from volume to value to values-based business practice.”

Given the important contribution that wāhine Māori, women of colour and women in general make to economic development alongside indigenous peoples generally we closed by encouraging the Director-General to continue to spotlight the importance of our contribution at the WTO, to create space for our contribution to continue to be garnered, and to ensure that this contribution is not boxed in as a tick box exercise, but uses Te Taumata as a model where wāhine Māori are able to contribute alongside others offering their unique lens to every work item of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade international trade agenda.

The messages of the group were very well received by Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who said,

“She was honoured to have met with such an esteemed group of wahine toa.”

She noted that the message of compounding challenges for indigenous women resonated with her own experience, and reinforced the importance of opening space at the WTO for women and indigenous peoples given the role they can play as change makers in their communities and nations. The establishment of the inaugural advisory body is a credit to the Director General’s commitment to this ongoing dialogue.

Reflecting on her appointment Tania says,

“I’m fast learning that our perspective as Māori is highly valued for being both steeped in ancient wisdom whilst at the same time remaining relevant, sophisticated and advanced.

“We have a lot to offer and so much to be proud of”.

The first meeting of the WTO Civil Advisory Board will take place later this month.

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