UNESCO has found a way to avoid awarding a controversial science prize sponsored by an African dictator, whose regime is widely viewed as corrupt and repressive.

The Paris-based education, science and culture organization is not explicitly rejecting the $300,000-per-year life-sciences prize – funded with a $3 million donation from President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea. Despite global protest against the award by human rights organizations, who delayed a scheduled awarding of the prize in June, some of UNESCO’s delegate nations still supported the prize, while others were dead set against it.

Instead, UNESCO’s executive board, meeting in Paris from 5-21 October, expects today to formally adopt a decision that the prize should be suspended, while the organization will “continue the consultations among all parties concerned in a spirit of mutual research until a consensus is reached.”

Since it’s clear that consensus won’t be reached, this is a diplomatic way of saying that the prize is effectively on ice for ever. At the same time, insiders at the talks say, those African nations supporting the award don’t feel like they’ve been slapped in the face.

One unresolved question, as of Wednesday, is what will happen to the money, which could end up being returned to Equatorial Guinea.

UNESCO is also taking steps to ensure that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. A taskforce set up to review the strategy on awarding prizes in general, which reported in September, noted that there was no procedure to apply ‘when the integrity of a private or individual donor of a prize comes into question’. The taskforce recommends that future prize proposals be accompanied by a feasibility study which addresses the integrity of the private donor, and a recommendation from UNESCO’s director-general on whether or not to award the prize – none of which have been needed in the past. These procedures, if adopted, will not apply to past prizes.