Shaun Shelly is the Executive Director of Harm Reduction International.

Shaun was previously the Human Rights and Policy lead at TB/HIV Care. Shaun holds a post as a researcher at the University of Pretoria, Department of Family Medicine. He is the former Deputy Secretary of the United Nations VNGO Committee on Narcotic Drugs. He is a co-founder and chairperson of South African Network of People who Use Drugs (SANPUD). He is also the founder of SA Drug Policy Week and Africa Policy Week.

Shaun was awarded the 2016 SASOP Special Achievement Award for advancing psychiatry based on his notable contribution in advocating for positive change in the field of addictions, addressing the stigma and difficult socioeconomic circumstances associated with addiction, and his contributions in lecturing and ongoing research.

After establishing several businesses in the 1990s, Shaun developed a drug dependency and was embedded in the unregulated drug economy. Shaun worked at a therapeutic community for recently released drug offenders. Then he worked for a counselling centre and established South Africa’s first non-abstinence-based drop-in centre for people who use drugs. During this time, he gained his academic qualifications.

Shaun studied Addictions and Mental Health at Stellenbosch University and the University of Cape Town’s departments of Psychiatry and has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on subjects ranging from police culture to the neurobiology of dependent drug use.