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Teodoro Obiang, president of Equatorial Guinea, gave US$3 million to finance the UNESCO life sciences prize

Wikicommons/ Agência Brasil

UNESCO is suspending a life sciences prize sponsored by Equatorial Guinea, and is to review procedures for prizes it endorses, following bitter protests about the US$3 million endowment.

The UNESCO-Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences was agreed by the organisation's member states in November 2008 "in recognition of scientific achievements that improve the quality of human life".

This was despite strong lobbying against the award by Spain — a former colonial power in Equatorial Guinea — and France, the only European Union (EU) countries with embassies in the West African state. EU member states wrote to UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 2008, dissociating themselves from the prize, and US delegates also voiced reservations.

Now, just a few weeks before the inaugural winner of the prize was due to be announced, new UNESCO director-general, Irina Bokova, has suspended it along with other new prizes, until a review has taken place.

UNESCO insiders said that opposition to the prize had been growing within the Paris-based agency because of the association the awarding of the prize would confer between the agency and the Obiang regime.

Human rights groups including the Open Society Institute and Human Rights Watch, and anti-corruption groups such as Transparency International, have in the past criticised oil-rich Equatorial Guinea for corruption and a poor human rights record.

Last month international nongovernmental organisation Global Witness stepped up pressure for the US$300,000 a year prize to be "cancelled without delay". In an open letter to the UNESCO board, it asked for the US$3 million endowed by Equatorial Guinea to instead be deployed to improve life for the country's people.

Global Witness spokesperson Amy Barry said UNESCO should "place concern for human rights at the centre of its mission on education and culture rather than, as currently, offering its services as the 'blue rinse reputation launderers of choice' for the world's despots".

Simon Taylor, director of Global Witness, welcomed the review but said member states "should make an effort to insist the prize is removed as it is a blatant abuse of UNESCO's name in the most cynical way".