WDC NEWSLETTER ARTICLES

“Women of the Diamond Industry” focuses on the issue of gender equality along the entire diamond and jewelry supply chain. The series provides a platform for women in the industry to tell their own story and describe the particular challenges they have faced in their careers. The second article in the series is authored by Esther Finda Kandeh, National Coordinator of Women in Mining & Extractive Sierra Leone. Esther Finda Kandeh, National Coordinator of Women in Mining & Extractive [...]

AS THE COVID-19 CRISIS SPREADS THROUGH ASM AREAS, INDUSTRY STEPPING UP TO HELP THE MOST VULNERABLE A member of  GemFair staff preparing food and aid packages for artisanal miners and their families at a mining site in Sierra Leone's Kono region, as part of the organization’s COVID-19 response. By Konstantin Born Business Development Manager, GemFair When I left Freetown, Sierra Leone, to fly home to my family in London on March 11, I expected to be back in West Africa within weeks. How could I have [...]

WDC BOARD CONFIRMS LEADERSHIP FOR NEXT TWO YEARS, EDWARD ASSCHER, PRESIDENT, AND FERIEL ZEROUKI, VICE PRESIDENT ABOVE: WDC's top leadership through 2022, Edward Asscher (right), President; and Feriel Zerouki, Vice President. Meeting in a virtual session on June 5, 2020, the Board of Directors of the World Diamond Council has confirmed the organization’s  leadership team for the next two years, with Edward Asscher serving as the new President of the international organization charged with leading the diamond and jewelry industry’s effort to prevent conflict diamonds from entering [...]

IT IS SURVIVAL TIME Dear colleagues and friends, I retired from my business on March 2 this year, just a few days before the COVID-19 pandemic started dominating news headlines all over the world. It was bad timing for my children, Lita and Mike, who now run the family company. In the 50 years I have been involved in the industry, I have never experienced so rapid a fall in global retail sales. And we all know about the diamond multiplier effect – if retailers' sales shrink by 10 percent, then [...]

With the worldwide spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus and the imposition of lockdowns in most countries, the WDC called on its members to contribute blogs describing that they were experiencing in their own organizations and households, and how they viewed the impact of the global pandemic. Amit Eytan Member of the WDC Board of Directors CEO, Malca-Amit Group of Companies More than four months and counting. My last trip abroad was in January. It was to the United States, where I visited New [...]

A CITY, A HOSPITAL, A DIAMOND COMPANY AND A VISION The Smt Rasilaben Sevantilal Shah Venus Hospital in Surat, a state of the art medical facility serving the residents of South Gujarat, built and operated with the support of WDC member Venus Jewel. In 1912, a one-room shelter was established by five benefactors in Surat, a city in the west Indian state of Gujarat, where the Tapti River flows into the Arabian Sea. Naming it Ashaktashram, their intention was to provide care [...]

The March 2020 edition of the WDC News Update sees the launch of a new series, entitled “Women of the Diamond Industry,” focusing on the issue of gender equality along the entire diamond and jewelry supply chain. The series will provide a platform for women in the industry to tell their own story and describe the particular challenges they have faced in their careers. The first article in the series is authored by Iris Van der Veken, Executive Director of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC). [...]

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND ITS EFFECT ON THE AFRICAN DIAMOND MINING SECTOR A tailor from the Boteti sub-district in Botswana, working at one of the local enterprises contracted by Debswana to sew reusable cotton face masks, which will be will be distributed to law enforcement officers, as well as other essential services workers and communities around the company's operations. More than four months into the COVID-19 crisis, it is difficult and most probably premature to gauge the impact of the global epidemic on the rough diamond industry [...]