John Prendergast

John Prendergast is an American human rights and anti-corruption activist as well as an author. He is the co-founder of the Sentry, an organization concerned with war crimes. Prendergast was the founding director of the Enough Project and was formerly director for African affairs at the National Security Council. Career Prendergast worked for a variety of organizations in the U.S. and Africa in the latter half of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, focusing primarily on peace and human rights. At the end of 1996, he joined the National Security Council as Director for African Affairs and thereafter served as a special adviser to Susan Rice at the United States Department of State. As a special adviser, Prendergast was a member of the team behind the two-and-a-half-year U.S. effort to broker an end to the Eritrean–Ethiopian War. He was also part of the peace processes for Burundi, Sudan and DR Congo. Prendergast worked for the Clinton White House and two members of Congress, and left government in 2001 to become Special Adviser to the President of the International Crisis Group on Africa issues. Outside of government, he has worked for organizations such as the United States Institute of Peace, UNICEF, and Human Rights Watch. Alongside Gayle Smith, Prendergast co-founded the Enough Project in 2007. The policy organization aims at countering genocide and crimes against humanity. He is also a co-founder along with George Clooney of The Sentry, an investigative initiative created to uncover the financial networks behind conflicts in Africa. Together, Clooney and Prendergast had also previously co-founded the Satellite Sentinel Project, which aimed to prevent conflict and human rights abuses through satellite imagery. In 2020, Prendergast was named the Strategic Director of the Clooney Foundation for Justice. Other initiatives of Prendergast include founding the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools Program with Tracy McGrady and other NBA players, which funded schools in Darfurian refugee camps and created partnerships with schools in the U.S., as well as the Raise Hope for Congo campaign, highlighting the issue of conflict minerals fueling war in Congo and supporting a more comprehensive peace process. Prendergast has been a visiting professor at universities and colleges, including Yale Law School, Stanford University, and Columbia University.