Chronicle Editor
Mukudzei Chingwere, Harare Bureau
Zimbabwe resolved to take a leading role in the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme as chair for 2023 as a demonstration of the Government’s determination to promote the transparent and traceable trade of diamonds, President Mnangagwa has said.
He was speaking in a virtual address to the 78th United Nations General Assembly Plenary Debate on “The role of diamonds in fuelling conflict: Breaking the illicit transaction of rough diamonds and armed conflict as a contribution to prevention and settlement of conflicts”.
Zimbabwe, said President Mnangagwa, has been honoured to serve the global community as chair of the Kimberley Process in 2023 and as a proud host of the Kimberley Process Intersessional and Plenary Meetings in Victoria Falls City.
“We stepped forward to take a leadership role in the Kimberley Process as a testament to our national commitment to the promotion of the transparent, traceable and legitimate trade in rough diamonds and to ensure that diamonds contribute to improve the lives and livelihoods of the generality of the people in the diamond producing communities,” said President Mnangagwa.
“The Kimberley Process has come a long way since its establishment in 2003. Today, the process unites governments, industry and civil society in a concerted drive to counter the illicit trade in conflict diamonds.
“The diamond trade, as regulated by the Kimberly Process, has become a shining example of multilateralism and multi shareholderism. I congratulate the Kimberley Process for its decision to establish a permanent secretariat in Gaborone, Botswana.”
President Mnangagwa said he was confident that the Kimberley Process would be even more efficient and effective in executing its important mandate.
The Kimberley Process says there is a commitment to remove conflict diamonds from the global supply chain and participants have actively prevented 99,8 percent of the worldwide trade. Conflict diamonds are defined as rough diamonds used to finance wars against governments around the world.
Zimbabwe has scored major strides in the mining sector, ramping up production from a base of US$2,7 billion in 2017 to over US$12 billion last year, due to favourable investment regulations and an array of much-sought after minerals such as gold, platinum, diamonds and lithium, among others.
Mining sector revenues are expected to play a critical role towards the country’s attainment of an empowered upper-middle income society by 2030.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe pushed to ensure that diamonds play a critical role in inclusive sustainable global development during its chairmanship of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme last year. Delivering the outgoing chairman’s report at the 78th United Nations General Assembly Plenary Debate on ‘the role of diamonds in fuelling conflict’ in New York yesterday, the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Albert Ranganai Chimbindi, said Zimbabwe seeks to continue building and maintaining consumer confidence in natural diamonds through the Kimberley Process tripartite arrangement.
Ambassador Chimbindi delivered the report after visa complications saw the chair of the KPCS for 2023, Minister Winston Chitando, and the Minister of Mines and Mining Development Zhemu Soda, failing to travel to the seat of the UN which is domiciled in New York, United States.
He told the plenary that with a global annual trade value of US$16,2 billion and supporting global livelihoods of over 10 million people, Governments have redoubled efforts to safeguard the diamond industry and to do away with conflict diamonds.
“The diamond industry continues to support the livelihoods of over 10 million people around the world and is one of the sectors that has the potential to solve some of the developmental challenges in the world,” said Ambassador Chimbindi.
Zimbabwe was elected chair of the KPCS at the plenary meeting held in Gaborone, Botswana, from 01–04 November 2022, taking over from Botswana which had been chair the previous year.
“Upon her assumption of the stewardship of the Kimberley Process, Zimbabwe committed, and presided over, the activities of the scheme, guided by its founding principles and the over-arching objectives,” Ambassador Chimbindi said.
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