Mrs. Samah Norquist

Samah Norquist is a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center. She served as the Chief Advisor for International Religious Freedom to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). She spearheaded USAID’s contributions to the implementation of President Trump’s Executive Order 13926 on Advancing International Religious Freedom that elevated the protection of religious freedom worldwide as priority for U.S. foreign policy.

In her previous capacity, Norquist led the USAID’s Middle East Religious Freedom and Pluralism portfolio, which promotes efforts to strengthen religious freedom and pluralism in the region starting with the Genocide Recovery and Persecution Response (GRPR) program that provides direct assistance to victims of ISIS-led genocide in Iraq. In September 2019, Norquist oversaw the Middle East Bureau’s programming of more than $50 million in activities to promote religious liberty and pluralism and to combat discrimination, repression, or persecution of ethnic or religious communities across the Middle East.