Diamond Development Initiative Builds on Kimberley

In a bid to improve the lives of artisanal diamond miners and their communities, the Diamond Development Initiative (DDI) seeks to “ensure miners and their communities reap a fair share of economic benefits generated by the diamonds they extract.”

“The Diamond Development Initiative, seeks to break new ground in an effort to improve the lives of artisanal (small-scale) diamond miners, by going beyond the Kimberley Process to address economic development,” says Ian Smillie of Partnership Africa Canada. Smillie is the author of the new Madison Dialogue white paper titled “A Different Kind of Diamond Mining”.

The Madison Dialogue is a new cross-sector initiative established to promote communication and collaboration among companies, civil society groups and others seeking to encourage best practices, sustainable economic development, and verified sources of responsible gold, diamonds, and other minerals.

DDI hopes to raise artisanal diamond miners from “the ranks of Africa’s poorest” by determining who earns what on the diamond supply chain, educating artisanal miners on diamond valuation and pricing, and creating “best practice” guidelines for working with artisanal miners.

Participants in the DDI include Partnership Africa Canada, the Foundation for Environmental Sustainability and Security, De Beers, the Rapaport Group, the International Diamond Manufacturers Association, and the Communities and Small-Scale Mining Secretariat of the World Bank.

”The Kimberley Process played an important role in addressing these kinds of conflicts. But Kimberley is only half the solution to preventing future conflicts over diamonds. The other half is what DDI addresses: making a concerted effort to ensure that diamond mining and cutting provide economic benefit to the miners and mining communities," says Smillie.