Work Programme
Wairarapa is a growing region with strong primary industries, but faces long-term challenges like an ageing population, workforce gaps, and climate pressures.
Work Programme
Wairarapa is a region of opportunity and long-term change. While our population has grown rapidly - now over 50,000 and rising faster than the national average - we’re also facing structural challenges that require coordinated, sustained action. These include an ageing population, gaps in youth employment, pressure on natural resources like water, and rising costs that affect both businesses and households.
Our economy is grounded in strong primary industries, small and medium-sized enterprises, and a high-performing food and fibre sector that contributed $651.3 million to GDP in 2024. However, like many regions, Wairarapa is experiencing the impacts of broader economic conditions - from climate change and global volatility to uneven infrastructure investment and workforce shortages.
Photo by Jet Productions
The WEDS Work Programme - Turning Strategy into Action
The Wairarapa Economic Development Strategy Work Programme was created to respond to these regional challenges and opportunities in a practical, collaborative way. It brings the WEDS to life - focusing energy and resources where an economic development lens can make the greatest difference for Wairarapa.
Following the adoption of the WEDS, a regional prioritisation workshop in 2023 helped determine the focus areas for 2024–2027. This process involved iwi, business, local government, education, and community leaders, and resulted in identifying three priority areas for targeted investment and delivery:
These are not the only important sectors for our region - tourism, hospitality, and the wider visitor economy remain valued and active within the broader regional economic development landscape. However, these three priorities were identified as areas where coordinated effort led by the WEDS Project Management Office (PMO) could have the most immediate and sustained impact, based on regional gaps and readiness to act.
Challenges, opportunities and initiatives
- Understand the challenges that constrain growth
- Identify the opportunities where Wairarapa can thrive
- Design and deliver initiatives that make a difference.
Each initiative is connected to one or more of the Strategy’s 10 focus areas - spanning people, business, iwi, land use, and technology. Together, they form a work programme that’s responsive, regionally owned, and ready to adapt over time.
How the WEDS Work Programme is delivered
Measuring progress
Download
Download the WEDS Work Programme Implementation Plan
(Note: Plan is currently being refreshed – updated version available soon to upload to the website).
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Photo by Jack Austin
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