More than a million African informal, or artisanal, small scale diamond diggers and their families live and work in poverty, outside the formal economy.
The Diamond Development Initiative (DDI), of which De Beers is a founding member, is a unique effort to address their problems.
The Initiative brings non-governmental organisations, governments and the private sector together in a common effort that aims to convert diamonds into an engine for development, and to formalise the economies surrounding artisanal diamond mines.
The DDI intention is to create projects and initiatives that will have a direct impact on the communities involved as well as creating constructive dialogue between all the stakeholders.
The problem of “conflict diamonds” or “blood diamonds” is well known. Rebel groups in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and elsewhere took control of alluvial diamond mining areas in the 1990s, enabling them to pursue armed conflict.
Conflict diamonds were a product of the vast alluvial diamond areas in Africa where diamonds are mined by artisanal, small scale diggers.
There are estimated to be 120,000 diggers in Sierra Leone, 800,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and many tens of thousands in Angola, Liberia Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela and elsewhere.
The Kimberley Process, developed over the past eight years, has created a legally binding global certification system for rough diamonds and has helped to facilitate peace in several African countries but it is a regulatory system; it is not a tool for development.
However, there is a danger that some of those who suffered most in the diamond wars – the artisanal diggers and their communities – will be forgotten.
The problems of poverty in artisanal mining communities still remain - many workers simply do not receive a fair wage, and live outside of any formalised economic system.
The Diamond Development Initiative is an important complement to the Kimberley Process and to its work with alluvial producer countries.
Through education, policy dialogue and projects working directly with artisanal diamond miners and their communities, we aim to demonstrate that diamonds can be an asset for growth in countries where they have been a part of conflict.
Also, and most importantly, that diamonds can be a catalyst for national development.