BCCIC’s Develop What? Podcast Recommendations
2026 Edition
Podcast Episodes to Inform, Equip, and Mobilize Global Citizens
Each year, BCCIC curates a podcast playlist for people who want to think more critically about global justice and the systems shaping our world.
Develop What? brings together standout podcast episodes exploring global issues like climate change, conflict, imperialism, and gender injustice, how they’re connected, and how civil society groups are working to address them.
Featuring organizers, researchers, and movement leaders in Canada and around the world, the playlist centers solidarity, people-powered movements, accountability, and collective action. Designed for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of today’s global challenges, Develop What? offers a focused entry point into conversations that matter, grounded in real-world struggle and the pathways already being forged toward a more just world.
Use another streaming platform? You can find our recommended picks wherever you get your podcasts.
We share all of the episodes in our 2026 Develop What? playlist below!
The Dismantling of USAID: Impacts on Global Aid and Canadian Nonprofits
CharityVillage Connects
In this episode of CharityVillage Connects, we examine the far-reaching consequences of the Trump administration’s sudden dismantling of USAID, which has created a $63-billion void in global aid funding. With essential programs in health, education, food security, and disaster relief now at risk, what does this seismic shift mean for organizations already stretched thin? Canadian nonprofits are grappling with increased demand as they work to fill the gap left behind by disrupted partnerships. Tune in to hear sector experts reveal the challenges ahead and Canada’s potential path forward.
Available to listen on: the podcast’s website, iTunes, & Spotify
Peacebuilding and How Capitalism & Imperialism Undermines Feminism
Beyond the Ballot Box
Katrina Leclerc is an award‑winning peacebuilder, researcher, and advocate from Canada who specializes in the intersection of Women, Peace & Security (WPS). She serves as a respected expert advisor to governments, UN agencies, and civil society, supporting inclusive peace policy development and implementation across multiple regions and countries, including in Congo, Kenya, Lebanon, Rwanda and more. In this epsiode, we speak to Katrina about the work that she does as a peacebuilder, what a feminist foreign policy would look like, and power asymetries between the global north and global south.
Listen on: the podcast’s website, Apple Podcasts & Spotify
Canadian Ecopolitics in the Anthropocene
The Ecopolitics Podcast
In this episode, host Peter Andrée revisits the roots of The Ecopolitics Podcast by examining the dynamics of Canadian environmental politics in the mid-2020s. Joined by Dr. Rosalind Warner (Okanagan College), Dr. Will Greaves (University of Victoria), and Dr. Peter Stoett (Ontario Tech University), the conversation explores themes from their new co-authored book, Canadian Ecopolitics.
Together, they unpack how the politics of resource extraction, federalism, and settler colonialism continue to shape Canada’s environmental landscape. They also reflect on sources of hope, including the rise of civil society movements, Indigenous environmental leadership, and the growing recognition of the rights of nature. The guests offer candid insights on bridging activism and policymaking, listening across divides, and inspiring new generations to think long-term about sustainability in an era of planetary limits.
Listen on: the podcast’s website, Apple Podcasts & TuneIn. While the podcast is on Spotify, this episode is not currently on the platform.
Defending the rainforest: Daniela Orofino Poubel’s fight for the Amazon and its peoples
Reimagining Government Podcast
What does it take to defend the Amazon, and why does it matter for the whole world?
In this episode of Reimagining Government, hosts Gabrielle Beran and Kandice Louis-Wilson, speak with Daniela Orofino Poubel, Director at Amazônia de Pé, a Brazilian grassroots movement uniting over 300 organisations to protect the rainforest and its peoples. Daniela shares her journey from organising on the ground to building national coalitions, the challenges and power of collective action, and why optimism is as vital as urgency in the climate fight.
This conversation reveals lessons for governments everywhere on listening to grassroots voices, learning from Indigenous knowledge, and rethinking who holds power as the world responds to a changing climate.
Listen on: the podcast’s website, Apple Podcasts & Spotify
Co-creating transformative art from Turtle Island to Palestine with Smokii Sumac and Zaynab Mohammed
Indigenous Planetary Health
This powerful episode explores art as a practice of resistance, healing, and connection across lands and lineages. Guest hosts Kathryn Stone and Brenda Jimenez are joined by guests Smokii Sumac, a Ktunaxa Two-Spirit poet, artist, storyteller, and playwright, and Zaynab Mohammed, a storyteller, poet, playwright and artist of Lebanese, Iraqi, and Palestinian ancestry. This episode explores how colonial violence extends beyond people to target land, plants, and ancestral knowledge. In this episode, they discuss the political, cultural, and symbolic significance of olive trees in Palestine and their cultivation as a form of Indigenous resistance, survival, and storytelling. For both Smokii and Zaynab, art plays a key role in Indigenous-led resurgence and Indigenous planetary health movements.
Smokii discusses their journey in finding meaningful ways to stand in solidarity with Palestine while living on Turtle Island. Zaynab offers reflections from her time in Lebanon to illustrate a beautiful portrait of her family’s relationship with the land there.
Listen on: the podcast’s website, Apple Podcasts & Spotify
Resisting the Rule of Repression
EQUALS: Reimagining Our Economy
Most activists don’t wilfully choose a life of protest. But sometimes, we are left with no other option.
In this episode we speak with three activists from Kenya, Nepal, and France who explain what drove them to the streets to fight for their cause and the brutal violence they met from the state. We explore the profound cost to citizens when their governments choose force over justice.
Listen on: the podcast’s website, Apple Podcasts & Spotify
Emergency Marker 5: Leave No One Behind (w/ Jim Stanford, Anjali Appadurai & Seth Klein)
Break In Case of Emergency
Episode 5 of this 6-part special series takes on the equity marker: leaving no one behind. Erin Blondeau speaks with economist Jim Stanford, campaigner Anjali Appadurai, and strategist Seth Klein about what just transitions must look like in practice. They explore the realities for fossil fuel workers, the importance of linking climate action to economic fairness, and Canada’s responsibilities globally. Their conversation highlights that climate action succeeds only when it’s grounded in solidarity: supporting workers, expanding public services, addressing inequality, and ensuring that communities most impacted by the crisis are centred in solutions. It’s a reminder that justice isn’t an add-on: it’s the strategy.
Listen on: the podcast’s website, Apple Podcasts & Spotify
ICE, A Bipartisan Tale of Border Imperialism: Featuring Harsha Walia
Radical Futures
In this episode, Canadian writer and activist Harsha Walia examines ICE as part of a long-standing, bipartisan system of border violence rooted in imperialism and capitalism. She traces how U.S. border enforcement has expanded through militarization, detention, deportation, and the outsourcing of violence beyond U.S. borders. Walia argues that the problem is not ICE alone, but the broader border regime designed to control, exploit, and terrorize migrant communities, and situates this system within a global rise of authoritarian and imperial power.
Listen on: the podcast’s website, Apple Podcasts & Spotify
Speaking Up About Gender-Based Violence
Raised Voices
This episode explores the intersection of climate change and gender-based violence, drawing connections between environmental crises, poverty, and increased vulnerability to abuse. Participants from Zambia and Canada discuss the impacts of droughts, floods, and wildfires on displacement, economic pressure, and mental health, and how these conditions contribute to gender-based violence and sextortion. The conversation highlights the shared challenges faced in different contexts, the importance of community-led solutions, and the need for education, awareness, and solidarity in addressing both climate and social justice issues.
This podcast is a collaboration between VIDEA and Nyapachuma Memorial Foundation. A HUGE shout out to the Fund for Innovation and Transformation (FIT) for making this project possible!
Listen on: YouTube, Apple Podcasts & Spotify
Vijay Prashad on Venezuela, Iran and American Imperialism It’s
Beyond the Ballot Box
It’s been a turbulent start to 2026. To kick off the year, the United States kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Just days later, some of the biggest protests in Iran in decades erupted and continue to unfold. All of this is unfolding on top of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the protracted war between Russia and Ukraine, and many other unfolding crises that continue to shape global politics and public imagination.
How do we make sense of this convergence of crises? What does it mean for the future of global order?
The guest on today’s show is Vijay Prashad, a historian, journalist, author, public intellectual and the director of the Tricontinental Institute For Social Research.
Listen on: the podcast’s website, Apple Podcasts & Spotify
