Equatorial Guinea's government has spent lavishly on diplomatic accommodations while neglecting the rights of the country's poor in the lead-up to hosting the African Union summit, Human Rights Watch and EG Justice said. The government has also sharply limited public dissent and critical reporting. While most citizens of Equatorial Guinea languish in poverty, President Teodoro Obiang's government, which holds the revolving AU chairmanship, spent more than US$830 million to construct a luxury complex for the summit outside the nation's capital, Malabo.

Equatorial Guinea has built a multimillion-pound deluxe 'city' to host African leaders while the majority of its people live in dire poverty. Sipopo boasts 52 luxury presidential villas, a conference hall, artificial beach, luxury hotel and the county's first 18-hole golf course. It was built over two years to host an African Union (AU) summit that will last just a week. 'It's definitely a misplaced priority by the Equatorial Guinea government,' said Tutu Alicante, executive director of EG Justice, a group focused on human rights in the west African nation. 'This is a country where 75 per cent of people are living on less than $1 (60p) a day. This attempt to give an image of prosperity is totally misguided.'

EG Justice and other civil society organisations have credited UNESCO’s Executive Board for soundly rejecting a petition by the government of Equatorial Guinea to reinstate a prize funded by and named after its president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. In a decision on 9 May 2011, the Executive Board declined to consider a 4 May request by the Obiang government to reverse its prior decision and award the prize without delay. UNESCO indefinitely suspended the $3 million UNESCO Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences in October 2010 after an unprecedented global outcry seeking its cancellation.