The National Democratic Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

Zuzana Dzurikova Papazoski is the resident director for NDI in Slovakia. Ms. Dzurikova manages NDI's Western Balkan Legislative Strengthening program, a multi-year effort to increase collaboration between the parliaments of Western and Central Europe and the Western Balkans through cross-border and regional exchanges from the Institute's office in Bratislava, Slovakia.

A long-time NDI staff member, Ms. Dzurikova previously oversaw the Institute's parliamentary program in Montenegro, where she worked extensively with helping the Montenegrin parliament develop and adopt new rules of procedures and structures that emphasized more transparency and accountability in national policymaking. She originally joined NDI in 2000, managing NDI's parliamentary program in her native Slovakia.

Ms. Dzurikova has demonstrated regional expertise through her work as a trainer, election monitor and legislative consultant in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Montenegro and Ukraine, as well as in efforts undertaken with UNDP, OSCE/ODIHR, UNMIK and Freedom House. She also has extensive experience providing strategic guidance to political parties, and has helped design several local and regional political campaigns.

Ms. Dzurikova was a co-founder, legal advisor and board member of Civic Eye/Obcianske Oko, a Bratislava-based domestic election monitoring and civic advocacy organization. Earlier, she was the project manager of youth election programs for the Association in Support of Local Democracy.

Ms. Dzurikova earned her master's in law from Comenius University in Bratislava. She is fluent in Czech, English and Slovak with a working knowledge of German and Serbo-Croatian.