Rae McGrath

Raphael F. J. McGrath (born 5 November 1947), usually known as Rae McGrath, is a British campaigner and specialist in humanitarian response to conflict and natural disaster. He founded the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), and, as a leading member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), represented the organisation when it received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1997.

He was born in Liverpool and in 1963 moved with his family to Birkenhead. In 1968 he joined the British Army, where he served for 18 years as a military engineer. During the late 1980s he worked in Darfur and Afghanistan, advising non-governmental organisations and establishing landmine clearance operations. He founded the Mines Advisory Group in 1989, after seeing the impact of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) on civilians in Afghanistan, and became an internationally acknowledged expert on the impact of landmines and cluster munitions on relief and humanitarian efforts in the Balkans, Africa, and Asia.

In 1992 he co-founded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, an international coalition of organisations opposed to the deployment of landmines, and persuaded Princess Diana to give her active support to the campaign in 1997. The organisation won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, and McGrath presented the acceptance speech on behalf of the ICBL in Oslo.

He has also organised programmes responding to natural emergencies, such as the 2004 tsunami in Aceh as well as emergencies in Ethiopia and Somaila. He worked as Senior Programme Manager for emergency response with Save the Children UK from 2007 until 2012 and is now Director North Syria for Mercy Corps. He lectures on conflict and humanitarian issues, and is an Associate at the Post War Reconstruction & Development Unit (PRDU) at the University of York.