By Donald Nyarota
At a leadership meeting, the Kimberley Process is urged to defend its brand and its relevance through a strategic reform to enhance confidence, compliance and credibility.
At a recent leadership meeting of the Kimberley Process (KP), held on the sideline sof the Invest in Africa Mining Indaba the mood was sober but not defeated. The global diamond trade is faltering. Consumer demand has softened. Lab-grown stones are biting into market share. Geopolitical tensions and governance failures cloud supply chains. Yet amid the unease, a clear strategic proposition emerged: the KP must rediscover its voice, defend its achievements and reposition itself around credibility, compliance and consumer confidence.
The intervention came during a closed-door session attended by governments, industry representatives and civil society observers, including the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), representing the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition (KPCSC). The speech, though diplomatic in tone, was pointed in substance. The diamond industry, it argued, has forgotten its own origin story.
The KP was born of crisis. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, conflict diamonds fuelled wars in Sierra Leone, Angola and Liberia. The certification scheme, formally launched in 2003, was a rare example of governments, industry and civil society collaborating to regulate a global commodity. It aimed to prevent rough diamonds linked to rebel movements from entering mainstream markets. For two decades, it has functioned as the primary international framework for diamond certification.
Ironically, the success of that framework may now obscure its necessity. Countries once associated with conflict are today more stable and economically integrated. The horrors that prompted reform have faded from public memory. As one speaker noted, “we have forgotten why we are here.”
Yet complacency would be premature. Disruptions have not vanished; they have evolved. Artisanal mining remains fraught with governance gaps. Smuggling persists. Concerns around human rights, environmental degradation and transparency dog the industry. Meanwhile, the trade itself faces existential pressure from synthetic alternatives and shifting consumer preferences.
The paradox is stark. The KP may be one of the most elaborate compliance regimes in the mineral sector, yet it struggles to project authority. It conducts peer reviews. It requires statistical reporting. It mandates internal control systems. Few other mineral supply chains operate under such coordinated international scrutiny. And yet, in the public sphere, the narrative is dominated by criticism: failure to expand definitions, delays in reform, internal disagreements.
The speech’s central argument was strategic rather than defensive. Reform debates will continue, it conceded. Definitions may be expanded. Governance structures can improve. But in the short term, the KP must avoid undermining the very trade it seeks to regulate. Regulation without trade is self-defeating.
Thus emerged what one might call a doctrine of the “Three Cs”: consumer confidence, compliance and credibility.
Consumer confidence is the industry’s lifeblood. Diamonds are luxury goods, their value rests not only on scarcity but on symbolism. If consumers associate diamonds with abuse or opacity, demand erodes. The KP, the argument went, should more assertively communicate that diamonds pass through a global certification regime unmatched in most other mineral sectors.
Compliance is the scheme’s comparative advantage. For over 20 years, participating states have implemented internal controls, undergone review missions and submitted data. Countries once under scrutiny have reformed systems and re-entered mainstream trade. These achievements, though imperfect, are tangible. Yet they are rarely marketed as such.
Credibility, however, begins at home. A process divided internally cannot command respect externally. The speech warned against the corrosive effect of public infighting. If participants themselves project doubt, consumers and markets will follow suit. Transparency about shortcomings is necessary; self-sabotage is not.
For civil society, including CNRG and its KPCSC partners, this strategic direction carries both opportunity and risk. On the one hand, stronger communication about compliance could reinforce responsible sourcing norms. On the other, branding must not eclipse reform. Credibility is not achieved through public relations alone. It depends on whether the KP can meaningfully address smuggling, strengthen traceability and ensure that producing countries benefit from legal trade.
Members of the KPCSC at an annual planning meeting
Still, the short-term calculus is clear. In a contracting market, the diamond “brand” requires collective defence. African producers are increasingly coordinating to protect their economic interests. Trading centres and manufacturing hubs are sensitive to reputational shocks. If the KP does not articulate its value proposition, others, critics, competitors or synthetic producers, will define it.
The underlying realism of the speech was difficult to ignore: without a viable diamond trade, there is no Kimberley Process. And without credible governance, there may soon be no viable trade.
The KP now faces a dual task. It must continue internal reform while outwardly asserting the strengths of its compliance system. It must show that regulation enables trade rather than suffocates it. And it must remind consumers that diamonds, whatever their imperfections, remain subject to a level of international oversight rare in the extractive industries.
Whether this recalibration succeeds will depend on political will. The KP’s history shows that crisis can catalyse cooperation. The question is whether today’s quieter, more diffuse pressures will do the same.
Diamonds may be forever. Institutions are not.