Marco de Swart
Marco de Swart is an Associate Fellow at ICCT. With a background in political science and development studies, Marco started his career at the Radboud University as a junior lecturer in Political Philosophy, in Dutch Development Aid, and in International Development Cooperation in 1998. He fulfilled several advisory and consultancy posts related to humanitarian and conflict affairs, governance & civil society issues, human rights, and popular campaigning & advocacy. In Rwanda, Marco worked as programme manager with Norwegian People’s Aid (Civil Society & Justice) and before joining ICCT, he was Oxfam Novib’s programme manager for Governance & Active Citizenship. Rule of law and human rights have always featured prominently in his work.
Marco’s international experience range from posts in Central-Africa (four years in Rwanda), East Africa (one year in Tanzania), North America (six months in Canada), to regular missions to several countries in Africa, the MENA region, Asia and the Caucasus.
Follow Marco de Swart on Twitter @mdeswart.
Photo: Studio Oostrum
Despite nearly two decades of a global counter-terrorism campaign waged by the United States and its allies, there may now be four times as many Salafi jihadist fighters as there were on September 11, 2001. The total number is currently estimated at 230,000 militants spread across approximately 70 countries, with the lion’s share currently located […]
With the collapse of the so-called caliphate and the morphing of the proto-state back into an insurgency, the virtual presence of Islamic State is now one the ways for the group to maintain a link with its international audience and supporters. Nevertheless, after a peak in the years 2014-2015, IS’ media production has also sharply […]
Most Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) strategies assign a prominent role to counter or alternative narratives. The thinking behind these strategies goes something like this: groups like the so called Islamic State and Al Qaeda have been dominating the messaging war by reaching out over multiple platforms while culturally and individually tailoring their messages. The argument […]