Alan Whiteside was born in Kenya but grew up in Swaziland, where he attended Waterford Kamhlaba College. He has a B.A (development studies) and an M.A. (development economics) from the University of East Anglia and a D.Econ. from the University of Natal. He was an Overseas Development Institute fellow working as a planning officer (economist) in the Ministry of Finance and Development, Gaborone, Botswana. He then worked as a research fellow in the Economic Research Unit of the University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal). In 1998 he established the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the university. In 1990 Whiteside started the newsletter AIDS Analysis Africa and edited it until 2002. He is the coauthor of the books AIDS: The Challenge for South Africa (with Clem Sunter; 2000) and AIDS in the Twenty-First Century: Disease and Globalisation (with Tony Barnett; 2002 and 2006) and HIV/AIDS A Very Short Introduction as well as numerous articles. He has held fellowships internationally Leverhulme Visiting Professor, University of Southampton (2004-2006); Visiting Professor, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and in 2009, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, (Carleton University). He was appointed a Commissioner on the Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa between 2003 and 2006. He is a member of the editorial boards of African Journal of AIDS Research; Development Policy Review; Globalisation and Health and Journal of the International AIDS Society. He has an ongoing commitment to development, with Swaziland and Southern Africa as a central concern. He is a Board member of Young Hero’s Swaziland, an elected member of Governing Council International AIDS Society and is the treasurer; a member of the Waterford Kamhlaba United World College Governing Council; and a member of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Policy Advisory Committee. He is a patron of the Themba Trust based in London.
