International Rescue Committee UK

97% of the International Rescue Committee’s approximate 11,000 staff worldwide are nationals of the country in which they are working. This is because they know the place best and are invaluable in delivering services and support to those affected by conflict.

But the global network is also supported by international staff who are some of the leading members of their fields – from healthcare to education, emergency response to post-conflict development. This ensures that work is planned and coordinated to the highest level of technical expertise and draws on experience from highly complex situations in all parts of the globe.

Leadership

Our executive director is Carolyn Makinson, who joined IRC-UK in September 2010 from her role as executive director of the Women's Refugee Commission. A demographer by training, Carolyn was formerly executive director of MIT's Centre for International Studies.

Before joining MIT, Carolyn was a programme officer for population and forced migration at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and has continued to serve as a senior advisor to the foundation. In that role, she was instrumental in the creation of programmes for education in emergencies, in bringing reproductive health services to refugees and in generating a stronger focus on the needs of refugee and displaced adolescents, efforts in which the Women’s Refugee Commission has also been an important participant. With Carolyn's support, the Mellon Foundation funded the Women's Refugee Commission's groundbreaking 1994 survey of reproductive health services for refugees, "Refugee Women and Reproductive Health Care: Reassessing Priorities".

Carolyn has also worked with Macro International as a country monitor for Burundi and Kenya, and as a research affiliate with the American University in Cairo. She studied refugee programmes in Rwanda, Guinea and Mozambique as an affiliate of the International Rescue Committee and Save the Children in 1995-96.

Carolyn has won numerous academic fellowships and prizes and has published widely. In May 2004, prior to joining the Women's Refugee Commission, she was honoured with the Women's Refugee Commission’s Voices of Courage Award. She has a PhD in sociology from Princeton University.

Governance

The charity is governed by a board of trustees co-chaired by Jeremy Carver CBE and Kathleen O’Donovan. The other members are George Biddle, Mary Blewitt, Glenda Burkhart, Gillian duCharme, Sir Jeremy Greenstock GCMG, Sir John Holmes, FX de Mallmann, Lady Trish Malloch-Brown, The Hon. Richard Sharp and Diane Simpson.