President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva received this Monday (24), the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Pedagogical University of Maputo, in Mozambique.
In his speech, Lula highlighted the strong fraternity and history shared between Brazil and Mozambique, especially Brazil’s cultural debt with the African continent.
Lula stated that the title is a tribute to Paulo Freire and all Mozambican and Brazilian educators who keep “the flame of knowledge and freedom” alive. According to the president, education is, for him, an “obsession” due to the lack of opportunity to study.
Combating Hunger, Poverty and Inequality
The Brazilian president defended that the fight against poverty and hunger must be at the center of the development project, and cited that Brazil managed to get off the UN hunger map for the second time in 2025, due to successful public policies.
Lula also stated that international cooperation between must be fair, based on the solidarity, dignity and sovereignty of each country.
Read President Lula’s speech in full
I always thought that at 80 years old, after going through so much, I never imagined that I could be emotional again.
I’m actually a crybaby by nature.
I want to tell the faculty of this university and everyone who collaborated in giving me this award, that I already have many honorary doctorate titles, but none have moved me like this one, because I don’t feel any difference here between you and me.
I feel like we are equal.
So I feel very proud to be receiving this honor from the University of Maputo. Thank you very much.
I receive, with immense joy and honor, this title of Doctor A cause of honor granted by the Pedagogical University of Maputo.
I thank the Magnificent Rector, Professor Jorge Ferrão, the teaching staff, the students and the Mozambican government.
Returning to Maputo is, for me, always a reunion with history and affection.
When I came here for the first time, in 2003, I immediately felt that Brazil and Mozambique were united.
Not just because of language, but because of something much deeper: a fraternity that is born from struggle, culture and the dream of freedom.
Brazil owes much of what it is to the African continent.
We owe our color, our music, our faith, our joy and our way of being.
It was the African people who helped forge the soul of Brazil.
And that’s why, every time I return to Africa, I don’t feel like a visitor, I feel like I’m coming home.
Education was one of the first trenches in the construction of Mozambique.
The Maputo Pedagogical University is a symbol of the hope that a still young country has placed in knowledge to transform its trajectory.
Founded just ten years after independence and dedicated to training teachers at all stages of education, the Pedagogical University of Maputo translates the dreams of a nation.
Here, the teachings of Brazilian master Paulo Freire found fertile soil.
He showed us that true education must be liberating: not just teaching to read words, but also to read the world.
His methods and philosophy helped train generations of teachers, literacy teachers and community leaders.
This title I receive is also a tribute to him, and to all Mozambican and Brazilian educators who keep the flame of knowledge and freedom alive.
In Brazil, which only founded its first universities at the beginning of the 20th century, higher education has always been designed and reserved for the elite.
It took a metalworker without a university degree to come to power by popular vote to change this reality.
I have the honor of being the president who created the most technical and higher education institutions in Brazil.
In my three terms and in the term of President Dilma Rousseff, 610 technical institutes, 190 university extensions and 18 new federal universities will have been created.
We will soon open the first indigenous university and the first sports university in Brazil.
By 2026, we will reach 47 university hospitals managed by the federal government and 4 new university hospitals are under construction.
To promote the retention and completion of school for young people from high school, in 2023 we created the “Pé de Meia” program, which is a Brazilian expression that refers to saving a sum of money for the future.
The federal government deposits a monthly amount equivalent to 2,300 meticais into the account of each low-income student, which can only be withdrawn at the end of the month if enrollment and attendance are proven. At the end of the year we also offer a bonus equivalent to 11 thousand and 800 meticais.
Brazil also has initiatives that allow young talents from Mozambique and other African countries to forge their knowledge side by side with young Brazilians, weaving, in the classroom, the integrated future that we so desire.
The Undergraduate Student Agreement Program, PEC-G, which turns 60, offers the opportunity for foreign students to pursue higher education at Brazilian universities.
In 2010, we created the University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusofonia – UNILAB – a true living bridge over the Atlantic.
Education and democracy go together.
There is no true democracy where the people do not have access to knowledge.
And there is no development when riches are concentrated in a few hands.
Educating is making equal opportunities a concrete reality, not a distant promise.
When we invest in education, we form conscious citizens, qualified workers and ethical leaders.
My friends and my friends,
The title I receive today, in the area of Political Science, Development and International Cooperation, expresses the essence of fraternity between Mozambique and Brazil.
It symbolizes the shared understanding that true development cannot be imposed from outside, as it must be born from the will and intelligence of the people.
International cooperation is only fair when it is based on solidarity and respect for the dignity and sovereignty of each country.
This is the model that Brazil believes in.
And it is with this conviction that I have always defended that the fight against poverty and hunger must be at the center of our development project.
Hunger is not a lack of food: it is a lack of justice.
It is the result of mistaken political decisions, historical inequalities, and economic systems that concentrate income and opportunities.
Brazil knows what it means to overcome hunger.
We made fighting poverty an obsession, with programs like Fome Zero and Bolsa Família.
When I resumed the presidency in 2023, I made the fight against hunger a priority in my mandate. On that occasion, 33 million Brazilians went hungry again.
In just two years, with successful public policies and the political determination to put the poor in the budget, we left the UN Hunger Map a second time, in 2025.
During Brazil’s presidency of the G20, we launched the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, which has Mozambique as a founding member.
In May this year, I invited African agriculture ministers to visit Brazil and learn about our experience.
Africa has fertile soil and vibrant youth.
With cooperation for food production and the strengthening of family farming and scientific research, we will have the most promising future on the planet.
But it will not be possible to fulfill any ideal of prosperity in a world where unilateralism and wars prevail.
The Global South can no longer be a mere spectator of an international order that perpetuates historical injustices.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The title I receive today is also a celebration of the friendship between Brazil and Mozambique.
A relationship that completed 50 years in 2025 and is strengthened by faith in education, democracy and cooperation between free peoples.
I want to tell you, before closing, that education for me has always been an obsession.
And the obsession I have with education is because I didn’t have the opportunity to study.
Therefore, when I took office as Presidency of the Republic of Brazil in 2003, in my first ministerial meeting, I determined that it was forbidden to talk about spending on education.
Education is an investment, and it is the best investment the government makes.
I have in my skin, and I have in my life, what is a formed person and an unformed person.
I know how much someone who doesn’t have training is worth, and I know how much it’s worth for a worker to go look for a job without a profession.
I know how much it’s worth for a girl, a woman, to look for a job without a profession.
I know how much abuse we suffer for not having the opportunity.
That’s why education for me is an obsession.
No one can be excluded from studying because of the place they were born, the religion they profess, or the financial background of their family.
It is up to the State to guarantee everyone the same opportunity.
We cannot not understand that a young graduate is much more respected, will get a better job, will earn better, will be able to live better and build a better family.
A well-educated girl, she will not accept living with anyone in exchange for a plate of food, because she is educated and has dignity.
This is the world we decide to create.
Therefore, I want to say to the young people who are here, never give up. Don’t ever give up.
We don’t get old by the amount of years we have. We get old when we don’t have a cause to fight, we don’t have a reason to fight.
And we are right every single day.
For this, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you.
You don’t know what emotion is. As I’m a fan of a team in Brazil called Corinthians, which loses a lot, I’m not going to die of emotion in my dear heart.
But I wanted to say to the youth, first I want to close by remembering the great poet José Craveirinha in the poem “Futuro Cidadão”:
“I have cries in my heart that are not mine alone.
And I carry dreams of a world that doesn’t yet exist, but that we are building.”
Therefore, I want to tell you: for God’s sake, don’t give up, don’t be discouraged.
Whatever difficulty you have, it’s always better for us to keep fighting. Always fight, never give up.
That has to be our motto.
And young people, my dear young people, when you don’t believe in politics anymore, when you think that no one is good, when you think that everyone is corrupt, still, for the love of God, don’t give up.
Because the decent politician is within you and not within others.
Organize and fight. Because if not, we have no explanation.
The world produces enough food for as many people as there are in the world to eat.
And what is the explanation for 700 million people going hungry? If it isn’t the lack of shame on the faces of those who govern the world who don’t guarantee food for these people.
We cannot accept that poor people are treated as if they were invisible.
We are not invisible. We want to be treated with respect.
We don’t want to take anything from anyone. We just want the right to have the opportunity for a domestic worker to have her daughter at university, at the same university as her boss. That a bricklayer’s son can be an engineer.
This is the world I seek. And it is for this magnificent world that I fight.
That’s why I told you that I will live to be 120 years old. Because until I see the world as fair, I won’t stop fighting.
And I don’t think there would be a place for me in heaven. And I don’t know how to be nice when it comes to taking care of the poor, abandoned and disinherited people on the planet.
Guys, thank you very much.
May God bless you. And thank you very much for the title.
