Fiona has spent the past 40 years working in 30 countries across Africa and Asia on the design, management, strategic planning and evaluation of public and private sector health and development programmes with a focus largely on reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health.
Her work in international development started in Swaziland in 1976 where she was co-founder of the Family Life Association of Swaziland (an IPPF member organisation). She then spent over five years in Bangladesh working for ODA (now DFID) establishing a joint donor funding and technical support mechanism for health sector NGOs. She then managed DFID’s health programme in Nigeria before returning to DFID headquarters as health adviser for Pakistan and South Asia regional programmes. She was awarded the MBE in 1992 and the OBE in 1999.
Since 2002, Fiona has been an independent consultant – working largely for DFID, but also for UNFPA, WHO, UNAIDS, World Bank, Australian DFAT, GIZ, Gates, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and various international NGOs. Fiona was an active campaigner for safe abortion with the Women’s Right to Choose in 1971. She currently volunteers as Ambassador for the international leprosy charity Lepra, is Ambassador for the Family Life Association of Swaziland and is a director of Babymilk Action.
