16 May 2025:
It is with great sadness that PTF Europe has learned of the untimely death of Vivien Gyuris, one of its members. Vivien suddenly passed away on May 10th 2025, just a few days after her 50th birthday. Our sincere thoughts are with her husband, Csaba Kovacs, and her two sons Arthur Mark and Kristof David.
Vivien, a Hungarian national, joined the World Bank’s Budapest Office in 1999. She worked in particular with Franz Kaps, then the Senior Partnership Advisor in the office of the World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia, based in Budapest. The focus of this collaboration was on the World Bank’s role in the EU’s 1997-2004 enlargement process involving 10 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and Cyprus. During this period Vivien also actively participated in the preparation of the 2005-2015 Roma Decade of Social Inclusion, which was kickstarted by the June 2003 High Level Roma Summit, attended by the heads of state of several Central and Southeastern European countries, as well as by then World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn and George Soros. World Bank President Wolfensohn singled out Vivien as a major contributor for the successful outcome of the Roma summit. In 2013, Vivien took off for a semester at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.
After the closure of the World Bank’s Budapest Office in 2005, Vivien continued to focus on the topic of “inclusive education”, including for Roma children. Within the Roma Education Fund (REF), Vivien had different roles starting in 2005, first as a fundraiser where she organized two donor conferences in Brussels. After her maternity leave, Vivien worked as a communications officer, and later took over the grant management portfolio for financing preschool education for Roma children. She also worked on this topic with UNICEF. Vivien had almost completed a PhD on “inclusive education” at the University of Glasgow.
Vivien joined the Partnership for Transparency Europe (PTF Europe) in 2022, again sharing her skills in the education sector in relevant PTF supported programs. She focused on developing a collaborative social accountability model which included citizens, communities, CSOs and governments to improve service delivery, transparency, and accountability in the education sector.
Vivien will be remembered as a very friendly and open-minded person with particular interest in disadvantaged and underprivileged youngsters.