Moussa Iboun Conté

I am from a country deemed very resource rich – when we went to Burkina Faso for work, and we introduced ourselves as Guineans, everyone was saying “You come from a rich country – there are mineral resources, gold and diamonds”.

I was really intrigued to see that there is so much attention paid to Guinea because I know that – from seeing the deterioration of basic services – mining revenues do not benefit the population as a whole. There is no electricity, the country is plunged in total darkness and all successive governments since independence have not been able to resolve this energy issue. In addition, we have to consider access to water. I see how often people struggle to find drinking water and there are entire villages that have no water. So what’s the point of being resource rich I thought? That’s what pushed me to get involved in this issue.