Alexander William Lowndes de Waal (22 February 1963), a British writer and researcher on African issues, is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Previously, he was a fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University, as well as program director at the Social Science Research Council on AIDS in New York City. Considered one of the foremost experts on Sudan and the Horn of Africa, his scholarly work and practice has also probed humanitarian crisis and response, human rights, HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa, and conflict and peacebuilding.

He is the son of Rev.d Dr Victor de Waal, Dean of Canterbury from 1976 to 1986, and of writer on religion Esther de Waal. His siblings include barrister John de Waal, ceramic artist and writer Edmund de Waal, and Caucasus expert Thomas de Waal.

In 1988, de Waal received a D.Phil. in social anthropology at Nuffield College, Oxford for his thesis on the 1984-5 Darfur famine in Sudan. This research formed the basis of his book, Famine That Kills: Darfur, Sudan (1989). The following year he joined the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, only to resign in December 1992 in protest for HRW's support for the American military involvement in Somalia. He was the first chairman of the Mines Advisory Group at the beginning of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. He set up two independent human rights organizations, African Rights (1993) and Justice Africa (1999), focusing respectively on documenting human rights abuses and developing policies to respond to human rights crises, notably in Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan. His field-changing book, Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry was published in 1997. Foreign Affairs described the book as "A powerful critique of the international humanitarian agencies dominating famine relief in Africa."

De Waal (53°4′N 4°49′E / 53.067°N 4.817°E / 53.067; 4.817) is a village in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Texel, and lies about 15 km north of Den Helder.

In 2001, the town of De Waal had 188 inhabitants. The built-up area of the town was 0.06 km², and contained 78 residences. The wider statistical area of De Waal has a population of around 260.

Waal is the name of a number of European streams and locations:

The Crisis is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois (editor), Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller, W.S. Braithwaite, M. D. Maclean.

The original title of the journal was The Crisis: A Record of The Darker Races. From 1997 to 2003, it appeared as The New Crisis: The Magazine of Opportunities and Ideas, but the title has since reverted to The Crisis. The title derives from the poem "The Present Crisis" by James Russell Lowell. Published monthly, by 1920 its circulation had reached 100,000 copies. Du Bois proclaimed his intentions in his first editorial:

Predominantly a current-affairs journal, The Crisis also included poems, reviews, and essays on culture and history. Du Bois' initial position as editor was in line with the NAACP's liberal programme of social reform and racial equality, but by the 1930s Du Bois was advocating a form of black separatism. This led to disputes between Du Bois and the NAACP resulting in his resignation as editor in 1934. He was replaced by Roy Wilkins.

Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal (born 1966, Nottingham, England), is a British journalist, writer and an expert on the Caucasus. Thomas is the son of Anglican priest Victor de Waal and of writer on religion Esther de Waal, brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, John de Waal, barrister and potter and writer Edmund de Waal.

Thomas de Waal has reported for, amongst others, the BBC World Service, the Moscow Times, and The Times. He was a Caucasus editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London until December 2008, and later as a research associate with the peace-building NGO, Conciliation Resources. Currently he is a senior associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specializing primarily in the South Caucasus region. He is the co-author of Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus (New York, 1998) and author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (New York, 2003). He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford with a First Class Degree in Modern Languages (Russian and Modern Greek).