David Beňák moves from the Czech Agency for Social Inclusion to direct the Department of Social Integration at the Labor Ministry
As of 31 March 2022, David Beňák has resigned as Director of the Department for Social Inclusion of the Czech Ministry of Regional Development (i.e., the Agency for Social Inclusion) and Markéta Benešová has been entrusted with the Agency’s management, according to information published on the Agency’s website. “I am leaving the position of Director of the Department of Social Inclusion [at the Ministry of Regional Development] because I have won the competition for the position of Director of the Department of Social Integration at the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry,” Beňák told the Romea.cz news server.
“I will remain involved with the topic of social inclusion, but I will be dealing with it from the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry,” Beňák said. The native of Bílina, Czech Republic studied mechanical engineering at the Industrial School in Most and graduated in 1998.
He then attended the Higher Vocational School of Social Law in Most. After graduating from there, he earned a Master’s and a PhD in Pedagogy at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts in Prague.
From 2005 to 2015 Beňák worked for the Prague 14 Municipal District as head of its Department of Social Services, and in June 2015 he was appointed Deputy Human Rights Minister. Prior to that he had served in a volunteer civil society role as vice-chair of the Czech Government Council on Romani Minority Affairs.
Beňák became the director of the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion in June 2018. He was its fourth director, replacing retiring director Radek Jiránek.
The Agency was initiated by Human Rights and Minorities Minister Džamila Stehlíková, who began the work of establishing it in 2007. It was launched in March 2008 as a department at the Office of the Government.
For the next two years the Agency operated on a pilot basis in 12 selected localities. Marek Podlaha was its first director, whom Stehlíková dismissed after less than a year.
In 2009 Martin Šimáček replaced Podlaha. Then-Human Rights Minister Michael Kocáb appointed Šimáček to the post, who was succeeded by Jiránek and then Beňák.
Since January 2020 the Agency has been a department at the Ministry of Regional Development and currently cooperates with 109 municipalities in the Czech Republic. The Agency helps local authorities to map and understand in detail the problems of the socially excluded localities on their territories and their inhabitants in order to design and establish longer-term processes for solving those problems and obtain funding for them.
