Sierra Leone’s civil conflict serves as a troubled milestone in the history
of conflict diamonds. Today, Sierra Leone is at peace, but the DDI finds that
the diamond industry remains troubled. Despite the wealth they generate,
artisanal diamond mining districts in Sierra Leone – as in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Angola, Brazil and elsewhere — are less developed, have
greater health problems, more illiteracy and greater poverty than other areas.
the DDI believes one reason for this is the informal nature of the diamond
economy and the absence 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 typical community
development approaches are rarely successful. New private sector investors often
fail
The Standards and
Guidelines Project, carried out in conjunction with Partnership Africa Canada, with
support from the Communities & Small Scale Mining Secretariat and several
major diamond mining and retailing companies, has produced practical, relevant
information, standards and guidelines for a wide cross-section of government
departments, investors and development organizations
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.
