Signs of the Times: Understanding Changes to Canada's International Assistance
Thu, Oct 22
|Online via Zoom
Time & Location
Oct 22, 2026, 1:00 p.m. ADT
Online via Zoom
About the event
The international cooperation sector is navigating a period of significant change, from shifting donor priorities and constrained resources to an increasingly contested public narrative around international assistance. This facilitated panel examines what is shifting in Canada, what is shifting globally, and what these changes mean for ACIC, our members, and the youth we work with. Panelists will speak to the major trends reshaping the sector, the challenges organizations can expect in the years ahead, and where opportunities for adaptation and collaboration remain. The session will close with a moderated discussion and audience questions.
Speakers:
Rochelle Prasad (Co-Founder, SPARK Foundation)
Rochelle Prasad works across education, policy, strategy, and the future of work, focused on a deceptively simple question: what do people actually need to succeed and what gets in the way?
She founded SPARK Foundation as a teenager after seeing how many young people were leaving school without the mentorship, leadership experiences, life skills, or access to opportunities they needed to figure out what came next. What began as a grassroots initiative grew into an international education and social impact organization reaching more than 500,000 young people, 4,000 educators, and 1,500 schools across six countries.
Her work sits between strategy and implementation. Rochelle has built and scaled programs, led teams, advised governments, and developed partnerships spanning education, business, government, nonprofits, and international institutions. Through SPARK and other initiatives, she has helped generate more than $20 million in funding and partnerships.
Today, Rochelle works across education policy and strategic initiatives, including within the United Nations system and with governments including Canada and Fiji. Her work focuses on education, youth representation, workforce development, and how institutions can better respond to the people they serve.
A teacher by training, Rochelle has taught at UC Berkeley and University Canada West, developed university curriculum, and trained more than 300 educators. Increasingly, her work explores how AI and emerging technology are reshaping education, work, institutions, and society and how people can retain meaningful agency as technology moves faster than the systems around it.
As an author and public speaker, Rochelle brings these worlds together through conversations about education, technology, leadership, policy, and the systems shaping young people's futures.
She believes education shouldn't simply prepare people for the future. It should give them the power to shape it.
Rochelle is an Honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) recipient and Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree, and has been recognized with the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case, RBC's Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada, the UN Young Leader of the Year Award, and The Diana Award.
James Parsons (Executive Director, Global Affairs Canada, Canadian Partnerships Division)
James joined the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in 2000 and has spent his career in international assistance focused on bilateral programs in Africa and Asia, as well as in the Peace and Stabilization Operations Programs. He previously served as Head of Cooperation at the Office of the High Commission of Canada in Kigali, Rwanda, and has lived and studied in Thailand and Indonesia, focusing on Indigenous Peoples’ issues.
James holds a Master's Degree in Environmental Studies from York University, and a Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Resource Studies with a Minor in Native Studies from Trent University. Since 2023, James has worked for the Canadian Partnerships Division, where he currently serves as Executive Director.
Ekatha Ann John (Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager - Global Health, Results Canada)
Ekatha Ann John is the Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager for Global Health at Results Canada, where she advances health equity and champions the inclusion of people with lived experience in decision-making. Originally from Chennai, India, she previously worked as a health and social justice journalist with the Press Trust of India and The Times of India. She holds a master’s degree in Migration and Global Health from Queen Mary University of London, where she studied as a Chevening Scholar, and brings a passion for storytelling, collective action, and social justice to her work.