"It's not only shortsighted, but I think actually almost internationally suicidal to say we will not be part of the development struggle in Africa," said the former Armidale nurse, who has lived with the nomadic Afar people of Ethiopia for almost 30 years.

"They crumbled up and left out AusAID and made this thing under DFAT, but why on Earth can they not continue projects which would well benefit development such as dry land farming ... why can it not go to other governments in Africa?

"It is a shame - shame on the Australians."

Ms Browning spoke at Radford College on Monday during a quick stop in her latest "boggle-eyed" return to the west. Her nephew, Richard, is chaplain at the Bruce school and helped organise her visit with year 12 student Huw Smith.

The spritely, petite almost-70-year-old touched on protectionist governments, female genital mutilation, Islam and western materialism in a wide-ranging lunchtime chat attended by Radford staff and students.

Ms Browning first visited a famine-stricken Ethiopia in 1973 as a young nurse and struggled to settle back into life in Australia. She later worked in Sudanese refugee camps then Djibouti and Eritrea before meeting her husband, Ismael Ali Gardo, and permanently moving to rural Ethiopia in 1989.

Marrying a Muslim from the Afar community has demanded compromise, she said. She doesn't own pants and when in Ethiopia covers her head to signal her marriage. But her husband's faith was compatible with her own Christian beliefs, she said, arguing it was not a religion of suppression.

"Anything only works together in an environment of respect," she said.

"I would never even deem to wear trousers, I don't own any, because Islam and my husband tells me this is not for women. I'm not going to push him on this matter. What's the point? What's a pair of trousers, after all?

"You know what? Islam is nothing to fear ... There is nothing in Islam that appreciates suicide bombers.

"We use Islam to help the community wake up not to do female genital mutilation, we use Islam to stop them having early marriage, we use Islam to stop them treating the woman in the house like a slave."

Ms Browning outlined the work she does with her charity, the Barbara May Foundation, to provide maternal care to women living in remote areas in the horn of Africa, and rallied against globalisation - "one of the greatest damages of the world".

"The whole thing is that globalisation will work for people who are really wanting to blueprint the world, and that's what they want," she said.

"They'll come in when we've got too much cholera and we can't cope. When people are dying of malnutrition they bring in the malnutrition treatment stuff.

"But how do you get rid of that malnutrition stuff? Can we please be on an equal footing? Nobody wants us on an equal footing."

And despite Australians becoming "you" and Africa, Ethiopia and the Afar referred to as "we", Ms Browning said she still very much identified as an Australian.

She just wanted it to do better, she said.

Ms Browning's brother is former Anglican Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn George Browning.

To make a donation to the Barbara May Foundation, visit barbaramayfoundation.com.