A new body to curb the misuse of African diamonds has been established, a Belgian consulting group and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) said on Monday.
They said the Diamond Producers of Africa (DPA) initiative came after extensive consultations on the development of a common platform for African diamond-producing countries.
”African diamonds have suffered in the past through abuse of this diminishing asset in the context of conflicts and instability,” Nepad and Belgian International Economic Strategy (IES) said in a joint statement.
In Africa, conflicts have often been funded with the profits from illegal trade in so-called blood diamonds. Warlords and rebel group use this money to fund devastating wars.
Blood diamonds are said to have fuelled and funded insurgencies in Angola, Congo, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1990s. Illegal diamond buying offices still exist today.
Liberian warlord and former president Charles Taylor, currently on trial in The Netherlands for war crimes, armed and trained the notorious Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone in exchange for still-unknown amounts of ”blood diamonds”, fuelling a 10-year conflict that left scores of thousands dead and thousands more with missing limbs, read Agence France-Presse reports.
A key mission of the DPA will be to anticipate and prevent circumstances resulting in ”the misuse of one of Africa’s leading and most-sensitive resources”.
The new body would include Angola, Botswana, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Liberia, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Tanzania.
The Nepad secretariat and IES said focused education and training for the diamond sector on the continent will be a principal resource in unlocking diamond and human capital.
”The DPA will seek to protect the collective reputation and image of all African diamonds,” read the statement.
”Best trade practice, good governance, transparency and accountability will be rigorously benchmarked and will sustain both diamond and broader economic development for … diamond-producing countries.”
A workshop engaging these diamond producers will be held in the coming weeks.
”Nepad looks forward to energetically backing Africa’s growing role and responsibility in the global diamond and jewellery industry,” said Nepad chief executive Professor Firmino Mucavele. — Sapa