The United Nations Association of New Zealand was formed in 1946 to be the Peoples Movement for the United Nations. It is a non profit, non-governmental organisation which supports a national office and a number of branches around the country. UNANZ has several hundred adult members, publishes a regular newsletter, and holds seminars and events in support and celebration of the work of the UN.
In 1999 UNANZ established UNYANZ, to further engage young people in its work. In its seven year history UNYANZ has grown in leaps in bounds to encompass regional, national and international programmes and has developed a special character associated with the fact it is entirely run by young people. Today, UNYANZ consists of over 400 individual members aged under 25 from around New Zealand. In addition to this, the New Zealand Model UN Programme annually reaches around 1000 secondary school students through Model UN.
Model UNs within New Zealand are almost exclusively run by UNANZ, UNYANZ or Rotary Clubs. UNANZ further divides its local work by its Branches nationwide, UNYANZ similarly has created regional branches and it is these UNANZ and UNYANZ branches that run the Regional Model UNs.
UNYANZ runs the New Zealand Model UN in June/July of each year, and sends delegations to the UN Youth Conference (UNYC) in Australia and The Hague International Model UN (THIMUN) in the Netherlands.