Botswana one step closer to joining ADPA
Botswana, the world’s largest diamond producer by value, will join the next meeting of the African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA) as an observer.
This is one of the outcomes of a recent meeting between Botswana’s Minister of Minerals and Energy, Bogolo Kenewendo, and her South African counterpart, Gwede Mantashe.
ADPA membership will allow Botswana “to work with other (diamond) producers to address challenges such as market volatility, illicit trade, and evolving regulations while amplifying its voice in global forum,” stated the South African Ministry of Mineral and Petroleum Resources.
The ADPA has the following objectives:
- Cooperation between member countries in policies and strategies concerning prospecting, mining, production, cutting and polishing, as well as development of human resources and acquisition of technologies in the diamondiferous sector.
- Adoption of harmonised legal solutions and the exchange of information between member countries in areas related to mining and commercialisation in which individual states have acquired valuable experience.
- Promotion of mutual technical assistance in the coordination of policies and strategies of development of the diamondiferous sector.
- Transformation of conflict diamonds into diamonds of peace and sustainable development.
Further outcomes of this high-level mission are that South Africa’s State Diamond Trader and Botswana’s Okavango Diamond Company are discussing the signing of a memorandum of understanding, while the Council for Geoscience and the Botswana Geoscience Institute are engaging about possible cooperation focused on mineral exploration.
