"I always wanted to contribute to my country" - said His Excellency Ambassador Antonio de Aguiar Patriota to the group of 25 Ford Scholars who came to visit the Brazilian Ambassador to the United States at his Washington residence on Massachusetts Avenue, early in the morning on October 6, 2008. "And it is a great privilege to represent Brazil here, in the United States," continued Ambassador Patriota.

After the ice breaker and introduction of the students, we proceeded to a large table to continue our dialogue and discuss the theme the Ford Global Scholars Program promotes - UN Millennium Development Goals (UNMDG). Everyone was interested to hear what accomplishments Brazil has made so far in fighting such tremendous challenges as extreme poverty and hunger, AIDS, and environmental sustainability.

Ambassador Patriota on Brazil-U.S. Relations and Brazil Economy

Ambassador Patriota began his speech by expressing his view on Brazil - U.S. relations. "We have differences with the United States on many issues, yet we enjoy a close relationship and continue our fruitful dialogue. Brazil-U.S. relations are pivotal for us," said the Ambassador.

Ambassador Patriota noted that despite economic accomplishments, Brazil still faces a number of challenges, especially with social inequality. Yet Brazil is making every effort to address these issues, he said.

Brazil is a rich country with poorly distributed wealth, Ambassador Patriota explained. Historically Brazil’s wealth developed in several regional centers. While its central and southern parts held most of the wealth, the north-eastern regions were quite poor, noted Ambassador Patriota.
Other challenges include rising inflation and institutional debt. "However, we are overcoming these problems. For example, today Brazil has become a modest creditor nation," said Ambassador Patriota.

Despite the current economic downturn, Brazil managed to maintain economic growth. To keep the momentum, Brazil is establishing its own sovereign wealth fund employed to assist other important industries.

Ambassador Patriota also mentioned that Brazilian President Lula is a great example of how one can reach his most ambitious goals if he sets his sights high. The President came from a poor family from the North East region of Brazil. He started as a welder on factory and later joined trade union and became a union leader.

After decades under the military rule, Brazil needed to follow a democratic path. Lula won elections in 2002 and assumed office in 2003.

President Lula follows a pragmatic approach. Ambassador Patriota even compared him with Deng Xiaoping of China, who said, “it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black of white as long as it catches the mouse.”

Brazil Makes Significant Progress in UN MDG

Ambassador Patriota stated that significant progress had been made in many goals. Nevertheless, one of the most challenging tasks is eradication of extreme poverty. Brazil takes this goal very seriously, he said.

"I am proud to say that we have reached this goal far ahead of time. The number of poor was reduced by half by 2007 instead of 2015 as originally set. And we immediately set new goals to reduce it by a quarter more."

Complete eradication of extreme poverty is a very ambitious goal. "I want to emphasize that today more than half of the Brazilian population belongs to the middle class. And this is a significant advancement, " said Ambassador Patriota.

Addressing the question asked by a South African student on just how Brazil managed to reach such a difficult goal, Ambassador Patriota noted that the success could be attributed to a unique grant program, allowing grants to the lower end of society. Money was made available to women and mothers. Brazil, especially in rural areas, is still very much a traditional society, where women take care of households, and send students to schools.

"We also made sure that students undergo vocational training," added Ambassador Patriota.

"Just think of it, 11 million families were raised out from poverty! If you multiply it by 3 or 4, which is the average number of people in a household, it comes to 30-40 million people. And this is quite significant, taking into account the population of Brazil at 200 million people."

Education Has Its Evangelist in Brazil

According to Ambassador Patriota, in the education field Brazil has one great supporter and evangelist: Mr. Fernando Haddad, Brazil's "extremely capable" Minister of Education. Ambassador added that Haddad promotes a very ambitious agenda by creating new universities and supporting elementary education. Moreover, President Lula places a strong emphasis on the development of elementary education – Brazilian vocational training program is thriving. Over the past years, ten new public universities and 214 new vocational schools were created.

Noting that Brazil recently discovered large off-shore oil deposits, he emphasized that Brazil established a special fund to use these resources for future generations.

According to Ambassador Patriota, the importance of education for Brazil is hard to overestimate. Brazil invests 4% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in education, a share that may reach 4.5% next year.

More Women than Men Attend Universities in Brazil

Brazil is very active in fulfilling women's empowerment goal, noted Ambassador Patriota. President Lula has specifically created a ministry in charge of women's empowerment. As a matter of fact, more women than men attended Brazilian universities. Nevertheless, Ambassador Patriota noted that there was some distortion in that statistic. It is a fact that many women come from well-off families, and after they graduate from the universities, they do not necessarily follow the career path. "We want to change this situation and encourage women from low income families to enroll in universities instead," asserted Ambassador Patriota.

"Of course there are difficulties. For example, discrimination on the labor market remains strong: often men are paid more than women. There are domestic problems as well."

Among other achievements he pointed out that in Brazil three female governors had been elected (the country has 27 governors country-wide). "That was certainly not the case in not so distant past." Another example he cited was Ms. Dilma Vana Rousseff Linhares, who was elected as the first woman to hold the post of Chief of Staff of the Presidency of the Republic. "As a rising political star and bright woman, she has presidential ambitions, and perhaps some time later we might be able to see that Brazil is governed by the first female president."

Child Mortality and AIDS – Brazil Fights Challenges

Ambassador Patriota conceded that unfortunately, on child mortality issues Brazil had made the least progress. "We might not reach the target on time here," he said. However, with regards to maternal health, Brazilians enjoy free universal healthcare – “it practically covers everyone. In this area we have reached a high level of excellence.”

On combating HIV/AIDS – Brazil has kept the number of HIV-infected people to the level of 500,000-600,000. The U.S., for example, has one of the largest HIV positive populations in the world with an estimated 1.2 million people. "Considering that Brazil is a rather permissive society, we are pleased to see people acting more responsibly," noted Ambassador Patriota.

“The situation in my country in this regard still presents us with difficult challenges.”
However, with the population in Brazil growing significantly, we feel satisfied with what has been achieved so far.

Brazil Has the Cleanest Air Among BRIC Countries

Everyone is talking about Amazon forest issues. Yet Ambassador Patriota felt that many people base their assumptions on loose facts, or simply do not know the issue well enough. "Many analysts fail to mention the progress that has been reached by Brazil so far," said Ambassador.

Noting Brazil's accomplishments, Ambassador Patriota was proud to say that Brazil enjoys “the cleanest air among all BRIC countries.” It effectively utilizes hydro-electrical and nuclear energy. He also noted that it has a very well-developed ethanol program.

Brazil is also the world’s sixth largest car manufacturer, according to Ambassador Patriota. He explained that in Brazil veryone has an option to choose gasoline or ethanol for use. "Brazil always gets good grades for other environmental-friendly policies," Ambassador Patriota boasted

Deforestation is gradually decreasing, stated Ambassador Patriota. “Over the past few years we noted the trend in reduction of deforestation. However, this year we have been alarmed to see an increase for the first time, and we are concerned, and are taking measures to prevent it from becoming a new trend.”

Ambassador Patriota tried to put the Amazon issue into perspective. One should imagine that the Amazon region is equal to the size of Western Europe with millions of people living there, he said. Many farmers would like to “get a quick buck from the woods.”

Naturally Brazil still faces the challenges of enforcement. Ambassador Patriota suggested that policy-makers need to consider several factors to make enforcement effective. First, people in the Amazon delta should have jobs. “The basic philosophy behind sustainable development is that we should not simply freeze development but utilize it effectively. We should be able to create new jobs for those who depend on the forest,” said Ambassador Patriota.

He also suggested that Brazil needs to adopt new policies to replace the rainforest reserves. With the increase of living standards, people of the Amazon delta will inevitably become more responsible, he said. “We should not forget that Brazil remains an agricultural powerhouse, and we need to establish the right practices.”

Ambassador Patriota also noted that globally less than 18% of environmental problems account for deforestation. Over 82% accounted for fossil fuel burning, and here the clear problem states are the U.S., as the world’s biggest polluter, China, and Russia, noted Ambassador Patriota.

Establishing Global Partnerships – Brazil Enhances International Opportunities in Africa and the Caribbean

Brazil must enhance international opportunities that trade and investment offer.

“One of the examples, at the Doha Trade Talks Round we put together a coalition to work on the elimination of agricultural subsidies. For example, the U.S. subsidies on cotton production make cotton farmers in poor economies lose competition to American farmers.”

Because many countries, including Brazil, face “legislative vs. executive power struggle,” legislators depend on their constituents. For many legislators “getting re-elected” becomes the main goal. Important international goals are often compromised to fulfill the domestic agenda.

Ambassador Patriota stated that Brazil is strong on international partnerships. In fact, the country has become a minor donor country offering help to less developed economies in the region. “We also provide substantial help to Haiti, the poorest Caribbean state. Brazil took part in peacekeeping missions there.”

"Our African heritage also leads us to contribute more to African nations, like Mozambique for example. We delivered an antiretroviral vaccination to Mozambique; Brazil also supports many other African nations, like Burundi and Rwanda."

Noting that Brazil for many centuries maintained interracial harmony, Ambassador Patriota pointed out that Brazil is “proud of its African heritage.” “While millions of slaves were brought to Brazil from Africa, we never had the problem of racial segregation in Brazil. I would call our society color-blind and African heritage is considered essential to our development.”

Ford Fellows From Brazil See a New Path

After many more questions, rounds of excellent Brazilian coffee, tasting of pao de queijo, Brazilian cheese bread, and numerous photos with Ambassador Patriota, the students said that they wished to have more time to ask all their questions.

The consensus was that everyone loved the reception.

But more than everyone else, five students were particularly happy. These were Brazilian students from Salvador and Sao Paolo, participants in the Ford Global Scholars Program.

“I came out of the Brazilian Embassy with so many answers, but also a million new questions that vary from what I want to do with my life, to how does Ambassador Patriota know so much? And how can I be like him?” wondered Matheus Vieira, a student from Mackenzie University in Sao Paolo.

“Our Ambassador gave a very warm welcome to us - it was great. I was very impressed with his speech, and it seems that he knows absolutely everything related to geopolitics,” said Natalia Gebara, another student from Mackenzie University.

Thus one of the results of this meeting was that a few Brazilian students decided to become diplomats. “We hope to contribute to our country just like Ambassador Patriota!” said the students.

Clearly Ambassador Patriota offered much more than a simple set of statistics or another eloquent diplomatic chat to the students. He shared his passion for his country, and expressed his ideas on how to make this world better. And this is the advice students will always appreciate: genuine advice.