Austria and China are also bidding to host the two-decade-old diamond group’s secretariat and lobbying is intensifying ahead of a vote scheduled for one of the Kimberley Process’ upcoming meetings. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is the world’s leading organisation for combatting conflict diamonds, encompassing 85 countries that represent producers, markets, and other interest groups.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi, in his recent international engagements, has met with other heads of state to lobby them for the secretariat, including senior French officials. The United States last November said it 'commended' Botswana for its willingness to host the secretariat.
Recently, South African Mineral Resources and Energy minister, Gwede Mantashe said the country was backing Botswana as host for the secretariat.
“We support Botswana as the KP secretariat and we think it’s the correct decision,” he said in Gaborone during a meeting with his local counterpart, Lefhoko Moagi. “You do not need to go on and motivate for that because we understand that we should support Botswana.”
Mantashe said Botswana’s hosting of the KP’s secretariat was important for Southern Africa and the continent in general.
“We are the biggest producer of diamonds in the world and therefore we need to play our role and take our space where it is necessary,” he told BusinessWeek.
For his part, Moagi said by hosting the secretariat, Botswana would highlight to the world the transformational benefits that occur when diamonds are used properly.
“We want to host the secretariat to demonstrate that diamonds are for development,” he said. “Therefore, we need to be speaking with one voice to the whole world.”
In March, Masisi told Bloomberg in an interview in Nairobi that the country would push hard to host the KP secretariat, in order to have a better say in the reputational image of diamonds.
“We have the most to lose if diamonds are badly managed,” he was quoted as saying. “We have used everything we’ve got from diamonds for schools, for roads, for medicine, for developing our human resource.”
Botswana is chairing the Kimberley Process for this year and has prioritised the resuscitation of peer review visits to members. The visits were interrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19 two years ago. Already, Zimbabwe has volunteered to host a visit to review its compliance with KP standards.
