Alfredo Bruto da Costa (5 August 1938 – 11 November 2016) was a Portuguese politician. He served as Minister for Health and Social Welfare in the Government of Prime Minister

Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo Maria de Lourdes Ruivo da Silva de Matos Pintasilgo (; 18 January 1930 – 10 July 2004) was a Portuguese chemical engineer and politician. She was the first and to date only woman to serve as Prime Minister of Portugal, and the second woman to ...

1979–80. From 2008, he served as president of the Portuguese Economic and Social Council. He was President of National Commission for Justice and Peace from 2008 to 2014 and a member of the

Council of State A Council of State is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head o ...

between September 2014 and January 2016.

Biography

Alfredo Bruto da Costa was born in

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...

in the former

Portuguese India The State of India ( pt, Estado da Índia), also referred as the Portuguese State of India (''Estado Português da Índia'', EPI) or simply Portuguese India (), was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a se ...

. He was the son of António Anastásio Bruto da Costa, who led a group also known as the "Círculo de Margão" (Margão Circle) which wanted greater autonomy for Goa from Portugal during the Portuguese ''Second Republic''. Bruto da Costa graduated in engineering from the IST

Instituto Superior Técnico Instituto Superior Técnico MHSE • MHIP (IST, also known colloquially as Técnico, and stylized TÉCNICO LISBOA) is a public school of engineering and technology, part of University of Lisbon. It was founded as an autonomous school in 1911 ...

of the

Technical University of Lisbon The Technical University of Lisbon (UTL; pt, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, ) was a Portuguese public university. It was created in 1930 in Lisbon, as a confederation of preexisting schools, and comprised the faculties and institutes of veter ...

and completed a Doctorate in Social Sciences from the

University of Bath (Virgil, Georgics II) , mottoeng = Learn the culture proper to each after its kind , established = 1886 (Merchant Venturers Technical College) 1960 (Bristol College of Science and Technology) 1966 (Bath University of Technology) 1971 (univ ...

, UK, with a thesis entitled ''The Paradox of Poverty – Portugal, 1980-1989''. He taught at the

Catholic University of Portugal The Catholic University of Portugal (Portuguese: ''Universidade Católica Portuguesa'', pronounced nivɨɾsiˈðad(ɨ) kɐˈtɔlikɐ puɾtuˈɣezɐ, also referred to as Católica or UCP for short, is a concordat university (non-state-run univers ...

(UCP), the School of Economics and Management (ISEG, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão) and the Institute of Labor Sciences (ISCTE, Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e Emprego) on the subject of poverty and social exclusion, social problems and social policy.

References

1938 births 2016 deaths Health ministers of Portugal Portuguese politicians of Indian descent Portuguese people of Goan descent {{Portugal-politician-stub