Balazs Jarabik

Balazs Jarabik "is a democratization and development expert, columnist and political analyst. 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 Columbia University. His professional career 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), and helped to develop the Pontis public policy program to Belarus (from 2001). He is the co-founder of Democratization and Development Abroad at Pontis and remains a 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 the 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 at FRIDE, the Madrid-based European think tank covering democratization issues. He is a member of the board of the Simecka Foundation, the Slovak Governance Institute and a member of the Advisory Board of the Eurasia Foundation. He regularly publishes articles and analysis in English, Hungarian and Slovak, covering mainly affairs in the Commonwealth of Independent States.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."

• Associate, Democratization Policy Council