A TOP executive who quit his job as head of a global insurance company to help impoverished communities in Africa has received a major award from Manchester University.

Richard Harvey graduated in maths from the university in 1971 and became chief executive of Aviva - one of the UK's largest companies and the world's fifth biggest insurer.

But in January, 2007, he resigned and signed up to spend a year in Africa working for Concern Universal, a charity that aims to improve the lives of people in some of the world's poorest communities.

A few months later, Mr Harvey flew out to Kenya with his wife Kay to begin the first leg of a programme of front-line charitable work that took him to Mozambique and Malawi.

In recognition, Mr Harvey has been awarded Manchester University's outstanding alumnus award for 2008. It is presented each year to alumni who have achieved distinction in their profession or through outstanding service of a personal or humanitarian nature.

Mr Harvey, 57, said: "The year has provided the unprecedented opportunity to spend time with the very poor communities and understand the challenges they are facing.

"I used to think that improving aid to Africa was all about how cost effectively you could throw bags of food out of the back of a plane. Now, we understand that making a permanent and sustainable change is not about responding to emergencies, but helping communities realise their own strengths and help themselves." But, despite many positive experiences, Richard and his wife have been particularly shocked by the extent to which climate change has turned tough and unforgiving environments into virtually impossible ones.

He added: "The idea of `poorest of the poor' doesn't come home until you arrive in Malawi, where the country's food security depends on one, increasingly unreliable, rainy season a year.

"The results are devastating - nearly half of Malawi's children under five are stunted from malnutrition."

The son of a Cotswolds teacher, Mr Harvey moved into insurance after graduating and worked his way through the ranks to become chief executive of Norwich Union New Zealand in 1992.

In 1998, he became chief executive of Norwich Union and - after steering the company though a merger with its biggest UK rival, CGU - he became chief executive of the merged company, which was re-named Aviva in 2000.