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
While the Islamic State’s early years after its expansion from Iraq to Syria are generally considered a success, it was also during this period that internal ideological tensions developed within the group. The emerging faction of al-Hazimiyya, named after the Saudi cleric Ahmad al-Hazimi, instigated a power struggle within the group that posed a serious […]
This policy brief discusses the threat of maritime terrorism in the Tri-border area and the weaknesses of the Trilateral Cooperative Arrangement, a trilateral treaty between Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines that was set up to mitigate terrorism in the region. We also highlight the challenges associated with counter-terrorism in the region such as resource allocation […]
The study establishes how Salafism has been able to influence Dutch Muslim communities in the current period. Through exploratory research, fifteen ‘expert’ interviews with members from the Dutch Muslim community were conducted. They indicated several shortcomings due to having to endure interventionistic policies that have thus far failed to curb the rise in Salafist recruitment. […]