BCCIC’s Develop What? Podcast Recommendations | Volume 4
Podcasts That Equip, Celebrate, and Mobilize Canadians as Global Citizens
International cooperation is changing. How do we make sense of the intricate issues surging globally? How do we move beyond outdated aid models to address them? What does real solidarity look like in a world shaped by colonialism, capitalism, and crisis?
BCCIC’s Develop What? podcast playlist features handpicked episodes featuring grassroots activists, experts and movement leaders that will challenge your thinking on decolonization, climate justice, peace, demilitarization, and gender equality.
Learn how Canadians and citizens of the world are mobilizing to bring about a more just, equitable, and sustainable world, and how you can join them.
For the podcast enthusiasts looking for binge-worthy series, we got you covered, too.
You know that feeling when you find a new show or podcast series that you savour every episode of because it’s so good? In celebration of International Development Week 2025, BCCIC is not only releasing our beloved annual Develop What? playlist. We’re also sharing some of our favourite podcast series.
Our playlist is great for on the go listeners looking for bite-sized, hand selected episodes available on Spotify. For those looking to dive deeper, the podcasts below are just so good that we couldn’t pick a single episode to be featured in the playlist. You can also access these podcasts across listening apps.
If you’re looking for a podcast series that you can trust to keep you entertained, informed, and motivated, check these out.
The Ecopolitics Podcast
The Ecopolitics Podcast offers conversations with professors, policy-makers and practitioners about the state of environmental politics in Canada and around the world. Each season builds on one another, with Season 1 focusing on Canadian environmental politics, Season 2 on major themes in global ecopolitics, and Season 3, delving into everyday ecopolitics. Season 4, which just began this year, continues the conversation with discussions on the Anthropocene and its implications.
Here are some episodes you may like:
Environmental Racism & Justice in Canada
Racism and colonialism are deeply entrenched in the field of ecopolitics. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Andil Gosine, professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, and Tzazná Miranda Leal, Workers Rights Organizer and Community Artist with Justice For Migrant Workers about the ways in which racism is woven throughout Canadian environmental history and its impacts on Canadian environmental policy and research.
Eco-Colonialism and Environmental Justice in the Global South
In this episode, we explore the theme of wildlife conservation and the tensions that exist between how people in the global north tend to view these issues versus how they are perceived and experienced by the rural people who live alongside wild animals in countries like Botswana in southern Africa.
Holding the Fire
Here are some episodes you may like:
Understanding Suffering and Knowing Our Place with Galina Angarova
Galina Angarova is a Buryat woman from the Lake Baikal region of Siberia. In addition to being the Executive Director of Cultural Survival, an Indigenous-led NGO that advocates for the rights of Indigenous peoples around the world, Galina is a climate activist and a land rights activist. She shares what it was like being raised within an intact Indigenous culture that is not based on extractivism, commodification, acquisition, and exploitation. Galina explores the critically important role of ancestors, the effects of intergenerational trauma, grieving the world as it is now, and the role of Indigenous women during this time of crisis on planet Earth.
Dismantling Destructive Narratives with Yuria Celidwen
Dr. Yuria Celidwen, a native of Nahua and Maya descent from Chiapas, Mexico, has been conducting research that combines the vibrant threads of Indigenous studies, cultural psychology, and contemplative science. She outlines how we must find true belonging and true community with both humans and the more-than-human world to address The Great Unraveling.
Strength and Solidarity
Here are some episodes you may like:
Kenya: The Birth and Resilience of a Social Movement
People power has been on display in Kenya as tens of thousands of citizens faced down tear gas and live bullets forcing the government to withdraw legislation that would have mandated higher taxes. Kenya has a deep tradition of grassroots organizing dating back to the bitter struggle against British colonial rule, which has regularly re-emerged to challenge authoritarian rule, election theft and corruption. The Social Justice Centres Working Group’s National Convenor, Happy Olal, joins today to talk about how the movement took root in the capital Nairobi a decade ago, and has kept on growing.
Women’s Rights: Frontlines in the global feminist movement
How should we describe the state of the global struggle for women’s rights? Three feminist leaders from around the world join the podcast to assess this moment in their respective fields.
Guerrilla History
Guerrilla History is the podcast that explores reports of global history, and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. Your hosts are educators Henry Hakamaki and Professor Adnan Husain, historian and Director of the School of Religion at Queens University.
Here are some episodes you may like:
Women and Militarism w/ Sarah Raymundo
Within this conversation, we discuss the impact of militarism, and imperialist/colonialist military presence on women, as well as women’s resistance to militarism. While the guest of the show, Sarah Raymundo–an activist and faculty member at the University of the Philippines-Diliman Center for International Studies–focuses on the context of the Philippines, the episode ranges far beyond that.
African Revolutions and Decolonization (AR&D)
Momodou Taal, a British-Gambian PhD student at Cornell University studying African Political Economy, comes on the podcasts to discuss importance of studying African revolutionary history
The Power Shift: Decolonising Development
This podcast by the Development Hubbrings together activists, practitioners and thinkers to join a wide-ranging conversation on decolonisation, where they share ideas and identify tools for practical action. If you’d like to know more about decolonising development – and what it means in practice, or you would love to change the way you do your work in the development sector, then this is the right place.
Here are some episodes you may like:
Decolonisation as a Systemic Approach. Silvester Kasozi Interviewed.
In this week’s episode, we speak to Silvester Kasozi from Light for the World Uganda about the systemic approach they have implemented to decolonise the way they work. We talk about putting a strategy in place to approach decolonisation in multilayered ways and interrogate the issue from different perspectives.
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube
Nature-Based Solutions are “The Side Salad” for Indigenous Putting Africa-Centric Development into Practice.
Leslie Mudimu, a participant from Cohort 2 of our Skill Share Programme on Decolonising Development, joins us to discuss what Afrocentric development could look like, and how decolonisation and localisation is perceived and understood in the African academic context.
The Indigenous Planetary Health Podcast
We’re burning down our house, and we’re in for nasty weather. But Indigenous peoples have ideas for planetary resurgence and restoration. Through The Indigenous Planetary Health Podcast, Professors Heather Castleden and Hōkūlani Aikau from the University of Victoria bring you conversations with artists, activists, scholars, and other knowledge keepers tackling the climate crisis.
Here are some episodes you may like:
The Praxis of Indigenous Environmental Repossession: A Conversation with Dr. Chantell Richmond and Dr. Renee Pualani Louis
Governments and international governmental organizations’ responses to global environmental crises are failing; Indigenous environmental repossession, where it’s happening, is working. Authors Chantelle Richmond and Renee Pualani Louis join the podcast to explore distinct instances of Indigenous repossession in geographically diverse locales in Canada (Anishinaabe), Hawai’i (Kanaka Maoli) and Aotearoa (Māori), and the insights they reveal for other Indigenous communities involved in reclaiming their territories and ways of life.
Nature-Based Solutions are “The Side Salad” for Indigenous Planetary Health with Dr. Graeme Reed
In this episode, Graeme Reed speaks about planetary health, nature-based solutions, Indigenous knowledge and the teachings from Elders. Dr. Reed argues that what is needed for planetary health is for Indigenous Peoples to be reconnected with each other, their lands, knowledges, languages, and themselves.
Nerd-Out YPS Podcast
Nerd-Out YPS is a podcast by the Canadian Coalition for Youth, Peace & Security, dedicated to unpacking the complexities of Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) policies. Hosted by Katrina Leclerc—who was just presented with Cooperation Canada’s 2024 Karen Takacs Award—the podcast delves into critical discussions on how YPS policies are shaped, implemented, and challenged at regional, national, and global levels. Each episode features expert insights on policy trends, obstacles, and opportunities to institutionalize the YPS agenda, offering a deeper understanding of the role of youth in peace and security frameworks.
Here are some episodes you may like:
Episode 9 ft. Simone Diouf, the African Union Youth Ambassador for Peace
In this bilingual episode featuring Simone Mbode Diouf, the African Union Youth Ambassador for Peace for West Africa, you’ll learn about the realities of institutionalizing YPS, the complexities of ensuring young people feel true ownership of the agenda, and the ways in which grassroots perspectives align—or clash—with high-level policymaking.
Episode 7 ft. Ugandan Coalition for YPS
Obed Mugisha, the coordinator of the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) Coalition in Uganda, joins Katrina Leclerc to explore the coalition’s journey, from its inception to its early milestones, and discuss the vital role young people play in peacebuilding across Uganda.
We also have a recommended booklist, with books exploring similar topics as the podcasts listed above: from social justice, climate action, decolonization, Black leadership, and all things global cooperation.
Our two podcast initiatives were made as part of the BC Council for International Cooperation’s 2025 International Development Week programming. Sincere thanks to Global Affairs Canada, who contributed funding to this initiative.
