Botswana Bets That Diamonds Are Forever

Botswana Bets That ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ BOTSWANA Botswana In a village outside Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, Keorapetse Koko sat on an aging couch, facing the collapse of a career built on diamonds. “I have debts and I don’t know how I am going to pay them,” the mother of two told the Associated Press. “Every month (creditors) call me asking for money. But where do I get it?” Koko lost her job in 2024, becoming one of many diamond workers pushed out of the industry as inexpensive laboratory-grown stones made in China and India cut into Africa’s natural diamond trade. “The appeal of diamonds was always partly based on scarcity – and now they are no longer scarce,” mining historian Duncan Money told the Continent, an African weekly. For Botswana, the question is no longer whether diamonds are forever, but whether the country can afford to bet even more heavily on them. The government is currently trying to buy more control over De Beers, the diamond giant at the center of its economy. Botswana already owns 15 percent of the company, while Anglo American, the firm’s parent, owns the remaining 85 percent and wants to sell. A mid-April deadline for potential buyers to bid for Anglo American’s stake passed without a buyer being publicly named. Anglo said in its April 28 quarterly statement that the sale is still ongoing. “Buying De Beers is a risky undertaking – we do not have the money to buy De Beers,” Keith Jefferis, a former deputy governor of the Bank of Botswana, told business news publication the Executive. “We would have to borrow and repay that debt, and that is highly risky given diamond market performance and our current fiscal position.” Jefferis, managing director of Econsult Botswana, also warned that if De Beers struggled, Botswana might have to use tax revenue to prop it up, further straining public finances. The risks are already visible. Mining and Quarrying – official categories in the country – dropped 14 percent last year, while Diamond Traders, which refers to the buying, sorting, valuing, marketing and selling of diamonds, fell 17.6 percent. Botswana ended 2025 with 12 million carats of unsold rough diamonds in stock, nearly double the target of 6.5 million carats. It is easy to see why Anglo American wants to shed De Beers. But Botswana wants more of it because diamonds remain too important to leave to someone else. Botswana’s President Duma Boko says the larger stake is a strategic necessity. Mines Minister Bogolo Kenewendo told the Financial Times that Boko wanted “to ensure Botswana’s full control over this strategic national asset and the entire value chain including marketing.” The urgency is also political. Boko is under growing pressure less than two years after winning office in November 2024 on promises to raise the minimum wage and increase student allowances. But the diamond slump has hit state revenues and public services, while the economy shrank in 2024 and 2025. The stones account for about 80 percent of exports and roughly a quarter of GDP. When the market weakens, the whole country feels it. Diamonds turned Botswana from one of the world’s poorest countries into one of Africa’s most admired development stories, helping fund health care, education and infrastructure. Botswana is currently the world’s second-largest producer behind Russia, but that ranking offers less comfort than it once did. Boko has acknowledged that Botswana cannot keep relying so heavily on diamonds. “We’re looking to diversify…,” he told Reuters, explaining the government would focus on the green economy, climate-smart agriculture, renewable energy and a broader mining sector. Analysts said that the shift remained essential and that gaining more control of De Beers could not be a substitute for it. “The diamond strategy must therefore interact with, and not compete with, other national priorities,” wrote investment firm AInvest. “This includes infrastructure investment and the development of other sectors to build a more resilient economy.” For Joseph Tsimako, president of the Botswana Mine Workers Union, the stakes are counted in livelihoods, not strategy papers. “Diamonds built our country,” Tsimako told diamond trading platform IDEX Online. “Now, as the world changes, we must find a way to make sure they don’t destroy the lives of the people who helped build it.”