Chissano won the first Mo Ibrahim Prize for African leadership -- the world's largest individual award -- last month.

A former revolutionary who fought Portuguese colonial rule, Chissano served as president of the southern African country from 1986 until 2005, winning praise for his pragmatic policies in a nation once one of the poorest in the world.

"I continue to engage myself in domestic and African matters because I know too well how much still needs to be done to uplift my country and our continent," he said at an awards ceremony in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria.

"I look forward to using the prize to do all I can to promote good governance in a continent that is rapidly changing for the better."

Eradicating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis are among the largest challenges facing Africa, he said.

Chissano, a former leader in the Frelimo guerrilla movement which fought Portuguese rule in Mozambique for decades until independence in 1975, was only the second president of Mozambique.

Chissano showed his negotiating skills when he concluded a peace deal in 1992 to end a 16-year war with Renamo rebels, laying the foundation for his country's first multi-party elections in 1994.

Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born telecommunications entrepreneur, established the prize as a way of encouraging good governance in a continent blighted by corruption and a frequently loose adherence to democratic principles.

"It is time for us Africans to wake up and dictate our own agenda," Ibrahim told a news conference. "There are a lot of decent leaders and we need to encourage them."

Winners will receive $5 million over 10 years and then $200,000 a year for life, with another $200,000 annually for "good causes" they espouse.