Noam Unger is Vice President of Global Development Policy and Learning at InterAction where he leads efforts to strengthen the voice and role of civil society in global policy debates, advocate for robust foreign assistance funding, confront discrimination and regulations limiting U.S. nonprofits, and continue work on open data and transparency.

Before joining InterAction, Noam Unger was USAID’s Acting Chief Strategy Officer. He worked with the Administrator and the Agency’s senior leadership to improve Agency-wide strategic planning, coordination, and management for results, helping to identify, prioritize, and address key challenges related to U.S. development priorities. Noam served as Vice President for Partnerships and External Affairs for Global Citizen Year, an education-related social enterprise, from 2012 to 2013. From 2007 to 2012, he worked at Brookings, whereas a Global Economy and Development Fellow he directed the Foreign Aid Reform Project, co-founded the Development Assistance and Governance Initiative, and managed the annual Brookings Blum Roundtable.

Noam was also a founding member and principal of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN), a policy advocacy coalition promoting effective U.S. development cooperation, and he was a member of the Transatlantic Task Force on Development, convened by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His background includes prior service at the State Department and USAID in roles focused on international conflict and humanitarian assistance, as well as consulting work with Save the Children in Haiti and with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Having worked in the private sector as an analyst for a software firm, he is also a patented co-inventor.

Noam received his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and a master’s degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He was a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellow in Central America, South America, West Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. In 2010, he was selected as one of Devex’s Washington, D.C. 40-under-40 International Development Leaders.

Follow Noam on Twitter @noamunger