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Juraj Mesik

Senior Community Foundations Specialist, World Bank

Juraj Mesik is the Senior Community Foundations Specialist with the Social Development Department of the World Bank. The World Bank is one of the United Nations' specialized agencies and is made up of 184 member countries.

He served as Director of Ekopolis Foundation - Environmental Partnership for Central Europe - from 1993 until 2002; during that period, Ekopolis became one of three largest grantmaking foundations in Slovakia. From 1989 to 1990, Dr. Mesik served as a Member of Parliament in the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly in Prague. From 1990 to 1991, he served as Chairman of the Green Party in Slovakia and vice-chairman of the Federal Green Party. In 1990, he also became Director of the Department of Social Context within the Federal Ministry for Environment in Prague and remained in that position until 1992. In 1998, Dr. Mesik was elected to the Banska Bystrica City Council and in 2001 to Banska Bystrica Regional Council.

Throughout his career, Dr. Mesik has served as chairman of the local branch of the Slovak Union of Nature and Landscape Protectors, trustee for the Institute for East West Studies in Prague and New York, member of the Gremium of the Third Sector, a board that represents NGOs in Slovakia, and steering committee member for the 1996 SOS Third Sector Campaign. From 1996 to 1998, Dr. Mesik served on the Advisory Board of the Community Philanthropy Initiative for the Open Society Fund in Bratislava and as a Board member for the Slovak Academic Information Agency (SAIA) in Bratislava. From 1996 to the present, he has worked on the European Community Philanthropy Initiative with the European Foundation Center in Brussels. From 1997 to 1998, Dr. Mesik served as a board member for the Slovak Youth Foundation (IYF) and was a facilitator and G3S representative for the Roundtable of Local Government. In 1998, he worked as a member of the steering committee for the OK 98 election campaign. Dr. Mesik is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Banska Bystrica Healthy City Community Foundation.

In 1996, Dr. Mesik was awarded the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Salzburg Seminar Fellowship in 1998. Dr. Mesik is also the author of numerous commentaries and analytical articles that appear in daily Pravda, SME, weekly Zurnal, web portals Changenet.sk and Newropeans-Magazine.eu and other publications.

Dr. Mesik holds an MD from the Medical School at Comenius University (Czechoslovakia).

As one of the world's largest sources of development assistance, The World Bank’s vision is a "World free of poverty." Their mission is, "to fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results." The World Bank's primary focus is on helping the poorest people and the poorest countries. The Social Development Group in the Sustainable Development Network of the World Bank seeks to empower poor people by increasing their social assets and capacities. It also aims to promote inclusive institutions, thereby increasing poor peoples’ opportunities for more secure livelihoods, ultimately creating more inclusive, equitable and just societies.

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