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international development organizations. She holds a Masters of Management for NationalVoluntary Sector Leaders from McGill University and was awarded the YWCA of Toronto 2011Women of Distinction for International Development and Advocacy in recognition of herleadership in the field and her work advancing equality for women and girls.Diana Rivington is a passionate advocate for gender equality, women’s empowerment andhuman rights. She recently retired as the Director, Human Development and Gender Equality, ofthe Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and is now a Senior Fellow at theUniversity of Ottawa. Through her 34 year career with CIDA, Diana has made majorcontributions to the Gender Equality Policy and programming, both of which are globallyrecognized as innovative and leading edge.During her 2003 to 2007 posting as Counsellor to the Permanent Mission of Canada to theUnited Nations in New York, Diana sat on the Advisory Committee of UNIFEM and on thegoverning Bureau of UNICEF and was a key player in Canada’s successful involvement in theglobal effort that created UN Women. Diana has made significant contributions to numerousinternational efforts focused on women’s empowerment, including as Chair of the OECDWorking Party on Gender Equality from 1998-2000. Diana has experience in negotiations aspart of her CIDA experience and participated as a negotiator on the Canadian delegations tothe International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 and to theFourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.During her long career at CIDA, she had diplomatic postings to Honduras and to Colombiawhere she managed development projects focused on education, forestry, water andsanitation. Before joining CIDA, she worked with the Canadian NGOs World University Serviceof Canada, CUSO, and Canada World Youth.76