UN-Habitat: Engaging Youth to Create a Better Urban Future

Michal Mlynár

Deputy Executive Director

UN-Habitat

Dr. Michal Mlynár is a seasoned diplomat and educator with almost 30 years of experience in senior global assignments. On 21 December 2022, he was appointed by United Nations Secretary- General António Guterres as Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), at the Assistant Secretary-General level. He assumed his post in Nairobi, at UN-Habitat headquarters, on 10 April 2023.

Until April 2023, Mr. Mlynár served as Slovakia's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York (since August 2017). During his term, he co-chaired the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council reform during the 77th session of the General Assembly, served as Vice President of the UNICEF Executive Board in 2022, Vice Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission in 2021, Chair of the Sixth Committee (Legal) in 2019- 2020, and three-time co-Chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly in 2018-2021. Additionally, he was Vice President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 2018-2021 and a member of the Advisory Committee on Sustainable Urbanization to the President of the General Assembly in 2021-2022. He co-chaired UN Groups of Friends on security sector reform and on UN-Habitat.

Prior to that, Mr. Mlynár served as Director General for International Organizations, Development Cooperation, and Humanitarian Aid at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic (2015-2017). He was also Slovakia’s Ambassador in Nairobi, Kenya, from 2012 to 2015, during which time he served as Chair of the Committee of Permanent Representatives to UN- Habitat (2014-2015). In 2016 and 2017, he assumed the role of President of the 25th session of the UN-Habitat Governing Council.

Earlier in his career, from 2004 to 2009, Michal Mlynár was Deputy Permanent Representative of Slovakia to the United Nations in New York and Political Coordinator of Slovakia's diplomatic team on the UN Security Council (2006-2007). He also served as Deputy Chef de Cabinet for Slovakia ́s Ministers of Foreign Affairs (2002-2004 and 2010-2011) and headed units at the Ministry's UN Department and Diplomatic Protocol.

Mr. Mlynár has been a member of Slovakia's Foreign Service since September 2000. Prior to that, he worked as a school teacher of English and Russian for seven years, including as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington, California, and at UCLA. He holds a Ph.D. and a Master's in Applied Linguistics and Teaching Foreign Languages from Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. He studied in the United States and in the United Kingdom, too.