Sandeep Prasad is an Ottawa-based lawyer and activist. Before co-leading the Action Canada amalgamation, he served as Executive Director ACPD for 4 years. From 2006-2011, he held the position of Director of International Human Rights Advocacy with ACPD, where he was principally responsible for advocacy activities within the UN human rights system. In this role, Sandeep established himself as a leader in efforts to advance sexual and reproductive rights within the work of key UN bodies and mechanisms.
Since 2006, he has worked to ensure that sexual and reproductive rights issues receive greater attention from the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms, including the universal periodic review. This work has included his active participation in the Sexual Rights Initiative, a small South-North coalition of organizations working together to advance human rights related to sexuality at the United Nations. Among other achievements, his advocacy was instrumental in prompting the UN Human Rights Council to include maternal mortality and morbidity as a human rights issue in a landmark 2009 resolution. Since September 2012, Sandeep has served as a Member of the High-Level Task Force for the International Conference on Population and Development, a task force comprised of experienced and eminent leaders and activists, which aims to galvanize political support for sexual and reproductive health and rights, and to ensure that international development efforts prioritize these issues, including within post-2015 development frameworks. Sandeep has also sat on the board of directors of Canadians for Choice, where he served three terms as its vice-president. He is currently on the Boards of Directors of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation and the Asia-Pacific Alliance for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights as well as the Steering Committee of the International Initiative on Maternal Mortality and Human Rights