Jan Dusik, a longtime champion of sustainable development both at the intergovernmental level and in his native Czech Republic, has been appointed as the new Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Regional Office for Europe.

Mr Dusik joined UNEP in July 2011 as the Deputy Director of the Regional Office for Europe, assuming the role of Acting Director and Regional Representative later that year.

Born in 1975 in Plzen, Czech Republic, Mr Dusik graduated with a Doctorate in Law in 2001 from the Law School of the Charles University in Prague. In 2002, he received a Master’s of Science in Environmental Change and Management from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

Between 1998 and 2009 he held progressively responsible functions in the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic, including heading the European Union Department, through the Director General for International Relations, Deputy and First Deputy Minister.

Mr Dusik was the lead coordinator for the Czech Republic’s Presidency of the EU Environmental Council in the first half of 2009. He was appointed as the Minister of the Environment of the Czech Republic in the care-taker government in November 2009, a role in which he served until March 2010. He has headed the delegation of the Czech Republic at numerous meetings of parties of multilateral conventions and international organizations and their bodies, including the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and UNEP.

He also served as Vice-President of the Bureau of the UNEP Governing Council in 2007-2009, twice chairing the Committee of the Whole, and was the Chairman of the Bureau of the Aarhus Convention between 2008 and 2011.

Mr Dusik has been a staunch advocate of UNEP’s work supporting the global transition to an inclusive green economy, representing the organization at a number of major international venues.