Maxime Allard is the senior director of international programs, and director of the volunteer cooperation program, at the Paul Gérin-Lajoie Foundation, an international solidarity organization specialized in education. He has over 15 years of experience in the field of international solidarity, with organizations such as Canada World Youth and Oxfam-Québec, where he was coordinator of programs in the Middle East and North Africa, among others. He also has several experiences of international volunteering, in sub-Saharan Africa and in Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Holder of a master’s degree in international and comparative political science from the University of Montreal, a certificate in project management and the McGill-HEC EMBA, Maxime is particularly interested in human-centered, inclusive, diverse and decolonial management in international solidarity. He has developed expertise in volunteer management and partnership management, always with the objective of supporting the empowerment of partners in the Global South in their missions to initiate systemic changes leading to a fight against injustice in all its forms. Maxime will be speaking on Day 3 of the IVCO programme, in the session on Taking Action, Measurement and Takeaways and will share lessons learned from evaluating soft diplomacy and civic engagement in Canada’s Volunteer Cooperation Program.
