By sulaiman.sesay@awokonewspaper.sl
SIERRA LEONE, Freetown – Team Leader, Social and Economic Section at European Union Delegation to Sierra Leone, Mario Cavano, has called for better coordination between relevant institutions, increased transparency, and strengthened monitoring and evaluation in the diamond sector.
According to Cavano, doing so will help local communities situated in diamond areas to promote their development plans and reduce illegal artisanal mining and diamond smuggling,
Cavano was speaking at the final monitoring meeting of the regional approach to the Kimberley Process (KP) and artisanal and small-scale mining. The meeting took place at the Bintumani Conference Centre at Aberdeen in Freetown, on Tuesday 13th September 2022.
“In Sierra Leone, artisanal mining provides livelihood support to many poor people living in rural areas. There are an estimated 300,000 people informally working in the artisanal diamond-mining sub-sector,” he disclosed.
Cavano added that the EU has been at the forefront of the Kimberly Process, adding the EU is proud of what had been achieved since the launch of the process certification scheme in 2003.
“The Kimberly process has made the difference between war and peace. The Kimberly Process has had the merit of making it possible to control diamonds from extraction points to export points, thereby helping to eliminate conflict diamonds,” he said.
Cavano disclosed that the meeting marked the termination of the EU co-funded regional resource governance in West Africa, adding that the project implementation has been supervised by the MRU Secretariat with the technical support of GIZ.
He furthered that the project has promoted regional policy and capacity development for different government stakeholders, both in terms of improvement of regulation and reduction of smuggling.
GIZ Country Director, for Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, Christian Lindemann, disclosed that in the current phase of the Regional Resource Governance program which will end in December 2022, the MRU countries were supported in linking their mining sector more closely to the principles of social, environmental and economic sustainability.
Lindemann recounted that in early 2017, the REGO Program received the first co-financing from the EU to strengthen the Kimberly Process certification scheme in the 4 Mano River Union countries in a regional approach.
He continued that during the first phase, implementing partners including the two donors became aware of the issues and challenges raised, adding that expert reports indicated that gold was a threat to the stability of the region.
Lindemann added that the second phase of the regional approach includes the fight against the smuggling of precious minerals within the MRU and target capacity building of various stakeholders working around diamonds and gold.
He stressed the need for government, local industry, CSOs and the local communities to meet international standards but also to ensure better conditions for artisanal and small mining communities, noting that the process is implemented in close collaboration between the MRU Secretariat and the GIZ-REGO Program.
Lindemann revealed that the objective is to address the root cause of insecurity and instability in the sub-region, using mineral resources as a vector on the one hand and promoting the development of MRU states by generating substantial revenues for the respective government on the other hand.
He concluded by highlighting some of the results achieved so far through the collaboration between valued partners in the MRU.
Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Mines Mineral Resources, Emmanuel M. Sandy, recounted that phase 2 of the project October 2019 and ends in September 2022. Sandy added that the second phase of the project will improve livelihood conditions for mining communities as an incentive to reduce smuggling, while simultaneously increasing the space and role of CSOs in the mining communities. SKS/14/9/2022