DiamondBuzz
Botswana At 60: Diamond Leadership Takes Its Place On The World Stage
Diamond Embedded World Athletics Relays Medals Connect Botswana’s Natural Diamond Provenance, Local Enterprise, Creative Industry and Sport Diplomacy.
The Government of Botswana, in collaboration with the Diamond Sector, today launched the 60 Years of Diamond Leadership Initiative and unveiled the diamond-embedded medals for the Debswana World Athletics Relays Gaborone 26 at the Botswana National Museum.
This moment marks a defining shift in Botswana’s diamond journey: from resource extraction to global reputation; from mineral value to public value; and from provenance to purposeful international engagement through sport, culture, tourism, and local enterprise.
The initiative brings together key players across the diamond value chain, including Okavango Diamond Company, De Beers Group, Debswana Diamond Company, Diamond Trading Company Botswana, Lucara Botswana, and KGK Diamonds, working through the House of Botswana. Within this collective effort, ODC’s partnership with Ankit Gems and SRK, who covered the cost of polishing the Botswana natural diamonds, alongside Nungu Diamonds, demonstrates how collaborative investment can connect diamond polishing, jewellery-making capability, creative industry development, and sport-for-development impact.
“Today, Botswana stands as a benchmark for ethical luxury, where diamonds are valued for their integrity, their traceability, and their contribution to national development.” — Hon. Bogolo Kenewendo, Minister of Minerals and Energy
Speaking at the launch, Hon. Bogolo Kenewendo, Minister of Minerals and Energy, said:
Botswana’s next chapter is anchored on advancing provenance, deepening socio-economic impact, expanding citizen participation across the value chain, and accelerating downstream development.
In remarks delivered at the event, Advocate Duma Gideon Boko, President of the Republic of Botswana, reflected on the broader national significance of diamonds, noting their contribution to infrastructure, healthcare, education, and Botswana’s global standing. The President positioned the World Athletics Relays Gaborone 26 as a platform of resilience, growth, and excellence, and as a moment through which Botswana can host the world with confidence.
The unveiling of medals featuring Botswana’s natural diamonds, sponsored and produced through ODC, provides a powerful symbol of this ambition. The medals connect the excellence of athletes with the discipline, resilience, and value of natural diamonds, allowing Botswana’s story to travel globally through sport. The sponsorship reinforces ODC’s commitment to ensuring that diamonds do more than shine: they must create visibility, build enterprise, support national development, and open new pathways for economic impact.
The launch also foregrounded Botswana’s creative economy. The Main Gallery featured artworks by local artists, giving the event a distinctly Botswana visual language and affirming that diamond leadership must also create space for culture, creativity, and local talent to be seen on national and international platforms.
One of the initiative’s enterprise-development highlights is the Tokafala-supported Leteise Tote Bag project. Through the programme, Debswana has supported the training of 34 textile operators across Botswana, the majority of whom are women, including participants from mining communities such as Boteti. Curated by AfroFusion, the tote bags will represent Botswana’s heritage at international trade fairs and global engagement platforms.
Delivering the Vote of Thanks, Hon. Jacob Kelebeng, Minister of Sport and Arts, acknowledged the collective effort behind the moment and the significance of bringing the world to Botswana. He thanked Batswana, the diamond sector, sponsors, organisers, and partners whose support continues to strengthen sport as a platform for national pride, unity, and international visibility.
The diamond sector’s contribution to the Debswana World Athletics Relays Gaborone 26 reinforces a broader national principle: mineral value, when managed with intention, can be transformed into public value, supporting sport development, local enterprise, tourism linkages, creative industry growth, and Botswana’s global positioning.
As Botswana marks 60 years of independence and diamond leadership, this initiative signals a more confident and coordinated approach to telling the country’s story: one that links origin to impact, natural wealth to shared progress, and Botswana’s diamonds to the world’s imagination.
DiamondBuzz
De Beers Group Sets Out Portfolio and Organisational Actions to Support Long-Term Value Creation
Company outlines strategic cost optimisation, portfolio streamlining and operational changes to strengthen resilience while positioning for long-term growth in the natural diamond industry.
De Beers Group is advancing delivery of its business streamlining by setting out a number of planned portfolio and organisational changes to ensure an efficient cost base that strengthens resilience in the near-term while enhancing future competitiveness and retaining optionality as industry conditions improve.
Since 2024, De Beers has been streamlining its business in line with its Origins strategy to reduce costs, divest non-core assets and prioritise investment in activities that create the most value. Significant progress has been made, with more than $100 million of annual overhead costs removed from the business, the sale or closure of a number of non-core assets and significant capital and cost reconfigurations to asset expansion projects.
Simultaneously, De Beers has reinvested in natural diamond category marketing to support the industry’s efforts to grow natural diamond demand, launching new large-scale campaigns and collaborating with key stakeholders across the value chain to foster industry-wide investment. Global consumer demand for natural diamond jewellery returned to growth in 2025, while natural diamond sales increased across US independent jewellers in 2025 and into Q1 2026, led by higher value diamonds and those promoted by De Beers’ Desert Diamonds marketing campaign.
On the supply side, global rough diamond production is now decreasing, with several producers closing mines during 2026. Whilst the increasing rarity of diamonds and the emerging signs of improvement in consumer demand are likely to support longer-term value creation, rough diamond trading conditions are expected to remain challenging in the near-term due to cyclical and industry-specific factors.
Consistent with recent actions to improve business resilience, De Beers intends to pause production at the Venetia mine in South Africa for two years to reduce costs while also rephasing capital expenditure on its underground project. This will involve critical infrastructure investment to enhance the capacity and efficiency of the mine, with the intention to support future production growth as business and industry conditions improve.
De Beers is engaging with stakeholders in accordance with relevant requirements and the company’s values as it moves through this process, and will both support impacted employees and continue to invest in its community and Social and Labour Plan commitments.
This proposed action at Venetia Mine follows the decision earlier this year to pause the Tuzo Phase 3 expansion project at the Gahcho Kué Mine in Canada.
In parallel, De Beers plans to reconfigure its global operating model to refocus and prioritise resources on the core operational businesses and reduce its central corporate cost base.
Al Cook, CEO of De Beers Group, said:
“In line with our commitment to focus and streamline our business, we are making a number of changes to De Beers to ensure greater business resilience in the near-term, while supporting long-term value creation. We recognise the protracted challenging conditions as the diamond industry evolves, though we are encouraged by signs of consumer demand growth in the US and beyond, particularly in higher quality diamonds.
Global rough diamond supply is falling, bringing more support to the market. The changes we are making to our business are focused on underpinning our efficiency now and into the future, favourably positioning De Beers in its leadership role.”
De Beers Group will maintain current production levels through its other operations, and previous production guidance remains unchanged.
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