The Diamond Development Initiative (DDI), a group set up late last year to address the problems of Africa’s estimated one million artisanal workers, has published its mission statement and objectives.

 

The DDI stemmed from the recognition that the human, local, national and international problems of Africa’s alluvial operations are beyond the ability of the Kimberley Process to deal with and have not yet been addressed.

 

The founders believe a pooling of stakeholder efforts can achieve real change that could bring artisanal alluvial diamond mining into the formal sector, with major benefits for miners and governments alike, and the diamond industry at large.

 

The founders include De Beers, NGOs Global Witness and Partnership Africa Canada, Jeffrey Davidson (Communities and Small-scale Mining Program) and Martin Rapaport.

 

In its mission statement, the DDI says it aims: “To gather all interested parties into a process that will address, in a comprehensive way, the political, social and economic challenges facing the artisanal diamond mining sector in order to optimize the beneficial development impact of artisanal diamond mining to miners, their communities and their governments.”

 

The DDI’s objectives are to gather and disseminate information on artisanal diamond mining. In addition it aims to promote better understanding of, and possible solutions for:

• Government regulation and mining regulation;
• Distribution and marketing channels;
• Organizational aspects of artisanal production;
• Legitimate and transparent distribution channels;
• Organization among artisanal miners;
• Free and open markets for artisanally mined diamonds

The DDI also wants to promote wide participation in the process, including governments, donors, industry and NGOs.

 

The founders also announced a plan to hold a first convening meeting of the DDI in Africa in October or November. The meeting will be open to all governments, companies, NGOs and development agencies interested in furthering the objectives of the DDI.

 

Industry expert Ian Smillie of Partnership Africa Canada says the number of artisanal workers “can be placed conservatively at a million; it may actually be half again as high” with one million such workers in Africa and perhaps another 200,000 in Brazil, working for a pittance in the most abject conditions.

 

Indeed, most workers, of which many are children, only earn money when they find a stone, with middlemen who sell on the diamonds being the chief beneficiaries.

 

Alluvial operations also create a whole host of other problems, such as environmental degradation, water pollution, and the influx of a migrant labour force with high rates of prostitution and HIV/AIDS.

 

With poverty, underemployment and overcrowding, the unregulated diamond mining areas of Sierra Leone, Angola, the DRC and other states also present security challenges, with attempts by governments to deal with illegal miners often resulting in violence.

 

In addition to attracting young men looking for diamonds, the mining areas have attracted unscrupulous buyers, money launderers, weapons and drug traffickers, and rebel armies.

 

Smillie estimates that artisanal miners produce at least 10 percent, and perhaps more, of the diamonds that go into the jewelry shops of London, Tokyo, Paris and New York and are thus an important part of the diamond industry.