De Beers Chairman Nicky Oppenheimer recently participated in two events, discussing the role of business in transforming Africa’s natural resources into shared national wealth. The first was a keynote address delivered to the Said Business School at Oxford University, and the second was the opening of a De Beers-sponsored panel discussion at the Geological Society.

In his speech at Oxford on April 26, Oppenheimer focused on the importance of building partnerships with the governments of resource-rich countries, referring specifically to the company’s relationship with Botswana’s government. He described how Botswana, a landlocked and arid country, in 1967 was ranked the poorest in the world, also the year in which diamonds were first discovered there by De Beers geologists. 

Today, he said, Botswana is a middle-income country with a stable democratic system – achievements made with the help of diamond revenues. Botswana is the world’s largest producer in terms of value.

Oppenheimer referred to such partnerships as “an absolute recognition that contributing to the economic development of the countries and communities in which we work is essential if we are to ensure their stability and our continued access to the raw material that is the basis and the reason for our existence.”

He also spoke about beneficiation and of De Beers’ commitment to the creation of sustainable downstream industry in diamond-producing countries, as a way of maximizing the benefits received from diamonds and sustaining them past a time when “diamonds are no longer the primary source of income.”

Oppenheimer opened the Geological Society panel on May 1, in association with the Royal African Society, a discussion aimed at exploring the role of business in the front line of natural resource development economics.

The panel was led by Professor Paul Collier, director of the Oxford Centre for African Economies and author of the book “The Bottom Billion,” Professor Jane Nelson, director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and author of “Business as Partners in Development,” and Dr Nkosana Moyo, a partner responsible for Africa at private equity firm Actis, former IFC deputy director, and former minister of Trade and Industry in Zimbabwe.  

De Beers notes that the topic will be further explored in the company’s Report to Society 2007, to be published in June.