At a meeting of the Mano River Union (MRU) held in Freetown, Sierra Leone, between February 25-27, 2020, Elodie Daguzan, Executive Director of the World Diamond Council (WDC), expressed the WDC’s “strong endorsement” for “the regional approach by the Mano River Union (MRU) to reinforce the effectiveness of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPSC)”, the organisation stated. The MRU has declared that it will assist artisanal diamond miners gain “better access to the legitimate diamond supply chain, while receiving fair value for their work”.

The meeting was focused on a programme designed to enhance the implementation of the KPCS and included capacity-building measures for the artisanal and small-scale mining sector, as well as addressed issues pertaining to the prevention of smuggling of precious minerals and gemstones within and from the region, WDC said in a statement.

“The three-day workshop was called to design national and regional action plans to formalise artisanal and small-scale mining, with the goal of helping drive revenue back to the mining communities,” WDC elaborated. The project is being implemented by the governments of the MRU—Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia and Guinea – with the support of Deutsche Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and funding from the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

“In terms of volume, artisanal and small-scale miners account for about 15 per cent of rough diamond production, but they comprise more than 96 per cent of the individuals who earn their living from diamond mining,” stated Daguzan. “Regional initiatives that are designed to enhance the implementation of the KPCS should focus on allowing these communities to optimise the benefits they receive from their hard work, and their countries realising the full potential of their natural resources. These include preventing the smuggling of goods across borders, better transparency and enhanced methods for monitoring the extraction and movement of diamonds, and improvements in the capacity to properly evaluate mineral output.”

She noted that “All of these are addressed in the MRU regional programme.”

The WDC Executive Director pointed out that cooperative initiatives like the MRU’s regional programme create synergies that enhance the value of natural diamonds from the perspectives of both the mining communities and jewellery consumers.

“Just as rough diamond-producing countries contend that their nations should derive full benefit from their own natural resources, young consumers today demand that the products they buy must have social as well as monetary value,” she stated. “The natural diamond’s capacity to contribute to the long-term wellbeing of people and communities in the producing countries should be considered an integral component of our product’s value proposition, for it also addresses the consumer’s aspiration for social significance. It should enhance the value of the jewellery in which diamonds are set, as well as the revenues that flow back to the producing countries, thus generating higher income for each of your individual nations.”

Daguzan threw light on the grass-roots capacity building projects that have been undertaken by WDC members in countries of the MRU. These include De Beers’ GemFair project in the Kono region of Sierra Leone, and the “My Fair Diamond” project of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), which was first launched in the Koidu region of eastern Sierra Leone and is now being expanded to the Banankoro region of Guinea.

She emphasised that grass-roots projects carried out by the industry, and supported by regional programmes like those of the MRU, will create the synergies “that optimise the artisanally-produced diamond’s potential as an economic and social force”.  

Daguzan also informed the audience about the WDC’s new System of Warranties, which incorporates “critical elements” of responsible corporate practices “to ensure the good provenance of diamonds flowing through the chain of distribution, thus complementing current KP standards”.

Pic Cap: WDC Executive Director Elodie Daguzan (second from left), with participants in a workshop held during the meeting of the Mano River Union in Freetown, Sierra Leone, February 25-27, 2020, looking into supporting the effectiveness of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire.