Radio Interview
Listen to a live feature interview about conflict diamonds from TVO's The Agenda (December 5, 2006) with Ian Smillie, Research Coordinator, Partnership Africa Canada.
Run time: 13 minutes.
External Links
Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) works with organizations in Africa, Canada and internationally to build sustainable human development in Africa. It aims to strengthen African and Canadian efforts in research and policy dialogue relating to sustainable human development in Africa; to facilitate, among African, Canadian and international decision-makers, the adoption and implementation of policies that foster sustainable human development, and to promote greater understanding of and commitment to sustainable human development in Africa.
PAC has worked on the issue of conflict diamonds since 1999 and has been a key player in the development of the Kimberley Process and the Diamond Development Initiative.
“We have 200,000 to 300,000 artisanal diamond miners. If you multiply that by the number of their dependents, that's a hell of a lot of people depending on diamonds. What Sierra Leone really needs is to use the money from its natural resources for the development of the economy.”
Andrew Keili, Acting Director, Government Gold & Diamond Office, Sierra Leone
Standards & Guidelines - Sierra Leone Project
Purpose
Despite the wealth they generate, artisanal diamond mining districts in Sierra Leone, the DRC, Angola, Brazil and elsewhere are less developed, have greater health problems, more illiteracy and greater poverty than other areas. One reason for this is the informal nature of the diamond economy and the paucity of development organizations working in mining areas – governmental and non-governmental. Diamond mining areas are difficult places to work: they are socially fractious and often violent, and standard community development approaches are rarely successful. New private sector investors are also rarely successful.
A major objective of the DDI is to draw development organizations and more developmentally sound investment into artisanal diamond mining areas, to find ways to make development programming more effective, and to help bring the informal diamond mining sector into the formal economy.
One way of doing this is to help potential investors and development organizations understand the political economy of development and investment in artisanal diamond mining areas, and to provide them with guidelines that will help them to avoid past mistakes and to learn from what has worked elsewhere.
Objectives
The Standards and Guidelines Project aims to produce practical, relevant standards and guidelines for companies and development organizations with an interest in engagement in areas where artisanal alluvial diamond mining takes place. The first set of guidelines has been produced for Sierra Leone and the project is now being replicated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Guidelines
The guide is divided into three main sections: Standards and Guidelines for Government make the case for a more coherent, whole-of-government approach to artisanal diamond mining, miners and investors – an approach going far beyond the Ministry of Mineral Resources. Standards and Guidelines for Investors tells exploration and mining companies, buyers and exporters what they need to know and what they need to consider when working in Sierra Leone’s diamond industry. Section three, Standards and Guidelines for Donors and Civil Society makes the case for much greater involvement on the part of local and international development organizations in this important and challenging sector.
Outcomes
Very little practical guidance is available to officials, organizations and companies interested in artisanal diamond mining. Lessons are not learned, and best practices (and worst) and not remembered. As a result, projects fail. The informality, disruption and human insecurity that have surrounded artisanal diamond mining for half a century continues. By encouraging greater external involvement in artisanal mining areas, and by helping those who are interested to learn from local and international experience, the project will help to attract a better quality of investor, better educated development interventions, and in the longer-term, more development, better returns to the communities where diamonds are mined, and sustainable activities that engage with, and contribute to the country’s formal economy.