FRIDE - Jarábik, Balázs

Balázs Jarábik

Head of Pact Ukraine in Kiev and associate fellow at FRIDE's Democratisation programme

Democratisation

Born in Slovakia in an ethnic Hungarian family he has studied history at the Comenius University in Bratislava, political science at the ELTE University in Budapest and human rights at the Columbia University, New York, U.S.

His professional carrier has started in 1996 as an associate to Laszlo Nagy, the current Chairman of the Human and Minority Rights Commission of the Slovak Parliament. In 1998 he took active part of Slovakia’s various civic campaigns. Working with the Pontis Foundation he consulted civic campaigns and NGOs in Croatia (1999), Ukraine (1999), Serbia and Montenegro (2000/2002) helped to develop Pontis public policy program to Belarus (from 2001). He is the co-founder of Democratisation and Development Abroad at Pontis and remains member of its Belarus Board.

In 2002 he helped to implement a large civic education and campaign program for Freedom House in Slovakia, and in 2003 he was heading the organization’s Tashkent office to strengthen capacity of Uzbek human rights defenders. Currently he heads Pact Ukraine to implement the USAID funded Organizational Development Program in Western NIS.

He is also an Associate Fellow to FRIDE, the Madrid-based European think tank covering democratisation issues. He is the member of the board of the Simecka Foundation, the Slovak Governance Institute and member of Advisory Board of the Eurasia Foundation. He regularly publishes articles and analysis in English, Hungarian and Slovak covering mainly CIS affairs.

Among his major publications are Minority Protection Report 2002, Open Society Institute, EUMAP Programme, Budapest, 2002; State of Minority Legislation in Slovakia 2000-2002 (ed.), Bratislava, Kalligram Foundation, 2003; Kan Kankan (in Hungarian about Uzbekistan), Lilium Aurum, Bratislava, 2005.