Alan Hirsch is Professor of Development Policy and Practice and has directed the Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice at UCT since 2013. He was born in Cape Town and educated in Economics, Economic History and History at UCT, Wits and Columbia. After teaching economic history and economics at the University of Cape Town, he joined the South African Department of Trade and Industry in 1995, managing industry and technology policy. He worked at the South African Presidency from 2002 to 2012 where he managed economic policy, represented the Presidency at the G20, and was co-chair of the G20 Development Working Group.
He has served or serves on the boards of a range of research or training centres including the European Centre for Development Policy Management. He was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School, was a regular visiting professor at the Graduate School of Governance at Maastricht University, directed the International Growth Centre’s research in Zambia for 5 years, and was a member of the OECD secretary-general’sInclusive Growth Advisory Panel.
He writes about economic development issues, including Season of Hope - Economic Reform under Mandela and Mbeki and recently co-edited The Oxford Companion to South African Economics.