What a year!

As you can see we were busy last year – bringing people together with our first conference, listening to citizens with our Economics Listening Tour and hosting webinars, events and international speakers. We have also been collaborating with other organisations to publish papers and advocate policies for a Wellbeing Economy.

A Wellbeing Economy puts our human and planetary needs at the centre of its activities. We are part of a global collaboration that brings together organisations, individuals and governments to transform the economic system into one that prioritises dignity, purpose, nature, fairness and participation. Rather than treating economic growth as an end in and of itself we work on new knowledge, narratives and connections towards an economy designed to serve people and the planet.

2023 has been our first full year as a registered charitable trust with Gareth Hughes as our Country Lead. Thank you to Gareth, Nadine Walker, Gina Lockyer, Oliver Harris, Rohan Reid and Ravaani Ghaemmaghamy who all led on specific projects. Thank you to our trustees, Chairperson Justin Connolly, Paul Dalziel, Suzy Morrissey, Michael Worth, Qiulae Antony and Joanne Waitoa. Huge thanks to our funders, event sponsors and partners.

This is just the start. We are excited to now be part of the Peter McKenzie Project flotilla and we will build the momentum we have seen this year in our urgent mission to reshape our economic system.

We hosted a sold-out Economy for Public Good conference

Thank you to our speakers who covered a deep range of topics from Mātauranga Māori approaches, Doughnut Economics, Degrowth and more as well as practical trainings on narratives and systems. Amanda Janoo WEAll’s Global Economics and Policy Lead brought an international perspective and an inspiring message.

We were struck by the diversity of sectors in the room and heartened to see the connections made between people inspired to progress past GDP, and create an economy where people and nature thrive. We will be sharing a recording of the conference early in the new year. Thank you to our sponsors:

We joined the Peter McKenzie Project flotilla.

The Peter McKenzie Project (PMP) is a collective of initiatives tackling the root causes of child and whānau poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand, so all childhoods can be full of opportunity. WEAll Aotearoa is excited to join the flotilla and is grateful for PMPs funding and support that will allow us to continue our mahi to reshape economic systems to deliver wellbeing by default. Read more about this new relationship here.

We listened to citizens across Aotearoa

Over winter our Country Lead Gareth Hughes hit the road in a campervan on an Economics Listening Tour. WEAll Aotearoa hosted workshops in large and small communities listening to citizens about their economic goals and aspirations which with the findings presented at the Economy for Public Good conference. You can read about the tour in this Stuff article or hear about it with this interview on RNZ

We hosted Wellbeing Economy Alliance co-founder Dr Katherine Trebeck

Katherine was in Aotearoa for a series of talks and workshops discussing the global movement towards building a Wellbeing Economy. This ranged from the role of businesses with a seminar hosted by Grant Thornton, the role of government hosted by the Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment and the role of cities with events hosted by the Wellington Regional Leadership Committee and Auckland Council.

Alongside our Country Lead she also met with the Finance Minister Grant Robertson a week before he delivered his 2023 Wellbeing Budget. The team also met with Ministers and MPs for an event at Parliament to discuss how we move from budgets and reports to a Wellbeing Economy.

Despite the busy agenda Katherine found time to talk to media and was interviewed on Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon show, by Newsroom and Katherine featured on both TV channels. She also published an opinion article in The Postand other regional papers.

We Launched an open letter

We launched our open letter. The letter has signatories from key organisations in Aotearoa including The Council of Trade Unions, Oxfam, New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services, Action Station and many others.

We have written this letter to outline a positive vision of the future – a world with dignity, where everyone has enough to live in comfort, safety, and happiness. An economy with purpose, with participation where citizens are actively engaged in their communities and locally rooted economies. An economy with fairness and justice is at the heart with a restored and safe natural world for all life.

The open letter also has principled and practical policy ideas as a wero to politicians – asking them about the transformational change they plan to take on to address our dual crises of climate change and growing inequality. It’s not too late to add your name to this letter.

We talked about budgets and tax for the public good

WEAll Aotearoa was proud to partner with The Workshop on a briefing paper that informed readers of the tools to shift the narrative on tax and budgets, two big tools we need to get right to deliver wellbeing for people and nature.

We also collaborated with many other groups as part of the Fair Tax Coalition Better Tax for a Better Future campaign.

We hosted Amanda Janoo in Aotearoa

We are deeply appreciative of Amanda Janoo, WEAll’s global Economic and Policy Lead who travelled to Aotearoa to give the keynote presentation at Economy for Public Good conference. We were fortunate to spend a week with her meeting people in Tāmaki Makaurau and Pōneke discussing the global movement towards a Wellbeing Economy. Read her article in the NZ Herald.

We hosted webinars

We hosted three webinars across the year and joined in on many others speaking about a Wellbeing Economy. Prior to the conference we hosted two webinars that you can watch now. The first event discussed a world beyond growth which explored Green Growth and Degrowth perspectives with Peter Nunns, Peri Zee, Professor Jonathan Boston ONZM and Jack Santa Barbara.

Our second webinar looked at better long-term thinking where we put people and planet at the heart of our decision-making with Sophie Howe, the inaugural Future Generations Commissioner for Wales and Sacha McMeeking, Ngāi Tahu, Associate Professor of Wellbeing at the University of Canterbury who led the development of He Ara Waiora Treasury’s Māori wellbeing framework.

In our third webinar, the WEAll Aotearoa team discussed our work this year and Aotearoa’s journey towards a Wellbeing Economy for WEAll’s Global to Local webinar series.

See all of WEAll’s webinars and videos here

We welcomed new trustees

Michael Worth, Qiulae Antony and Joanne Waitoa joined Justin Connolly and Paul Dalziel on WEAll Aotearoa’s charitable trust board. We also thanked Suzy Morrissey for her service as a foundational trustee.

We published The Turbulent Times

We collaborated with Daylight Creative to publish our zine – The Turbulent Times: only an economy for public good can change. It outlines what a Wellbeing Economy could look like and how we can get there.