Equatorial Guinea is the third smallest country in Africa and the only Spanish speaking one. Until recently, we had only limited knowledge of the goings-on there, but that all changed in February when the executive director of EG Justice, Tutu Alicante, came to Austin to begin a film collaboration with Live Oak Collective.
Though Equatorial Guinea doesn’t make the papers much here in the U.S., it should: thanks to rich natural resources and the discovery of crude oil there in 1995, EG has the second highest Gross Domestic Product per person in the world, and the Equatoguinean government annually makes about $6,000 per resident in oil royalties. Equatorial Guinea is also what EG Justice calls a kleptocracy, home to a government that makes big money off the country’s resources while its people live in poverty. As those in power get rich, only 30,000 out of 500,000 residents even have jobs in the formal economy.
Tutu started EG Justice in 2007 after receiving an Echoing Green fellowship for that purpose. The organization uses education, grassroots mobilization, litigation and advocacy with policymakers to work toward a just Equatorial Guinea. For our initial work together, we interviewed Tutu about the situation in EG using Live Oak’s cutting edge RED technology. The footage will be used to help educate both supporters of EG Justice and others who want to know more about what’s going on there. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with Tutu and EG Justice in the future!
Also - for those of you in the DC area, EG Justice is co-sponsoring the Equatorial Guinea Policy Forum, happening on July 17 at the National Endowment for Democracy.