At its 2024 plenary meeting in Dubai, the Kimberley Process (KP) decided to lift the 11-year-old embargo on rough diamond exports from the Central African Republic. What were the driving factors behind this decision, and what are its implications?
In this Q&A, IPIS delves into the background of the embargo, its impact and effectiveness, the rationale for its removal, and the potential consequences for the CAR, the KP, and the global diamond trade.
In which context was the KP embargo on Central African diamonds initially imposed?
In 2013, CAR experienced an escalation in conflict when the Seleka, a coalition of rebel groups, overthrew the government. This plunged the country into a period of conflict and instability that continues until today. Diamonds, a critical natural resource for CAR, were exploited to finance rebel activities, prompting international alarm.
The KP, a mechanism mandated by the UN to prevent conflict diamonds from entering the global market, responded by imposing an embargo on the country’s diamond exports in June 2013. CAR’s diamonds were classified as ‘conflict diamonds’ defined by the KP as “rough diamonds used by rebels to finance wars against legitimate governments.”
In 2016, following the restoration of constitutional order in the CAR, the KP partially eased its embargo, allowing diamond exports from zones deemed compliant. To achieve compliance, these zones had to meet four criteria: government control, the absence of rebel interference, secure conditions for free movement, and effective monitoring and traceability. Between 2016 and 2019, eight sub-prefectures in the southwest of the country were recognized as compliant.
Addressing concerns raised by CAR regarding the impact of KP controls—which traders argued caused delays and disrupted their ability to secure steady financing and sustain operations—the KP further eased its oversight framework in 2019. It shifted from a stringent export authorization process to a lighter export notification system with ex-post controls by the KP. Since then, no further progress has been made, and the majority of diamond mining areas remained restricted from export until the embargo was fully lifted recently.
Was the embargo effective?
A KP embargo is a largely hands-off solution that does little to address the root causes of conflict, particularly as it tends to foster a black market dominated by smuggling. The KP lacks its own budget to support countries in overcoming these challenges and regaining compliance. As such, the embargo ultimately served to reassure consumers while leaving diamond-dependent communities and those affected by conflict behind. Over the years, bilateral donors such as the United States and the European Union have stepped in and supported programs to strengthen mining sector governance and improve the traceability and sustainability of artisanal mining in CAR. However, increased controversy over Russian Wagner mercenaries’ involvement in CAR’s diamond mining and trade has stalled these efforts, further diminishing the embargo’s effectiveness in recent years.
In practice, the embargo failed to stop conflict financing and curb smuggling. Instead, it fostered an environment ripe for exploitation by criminal networks and mercenaries profiting from illicit diamond trade. Its most negative impacts were felt by artisanal miners, who received lower prices as legal and illegal traders accounted for the reputational risks tied to diamond origin. Many miners abandoned the sector altogether, turning to gold mining, which was not subject to sanctions and has consequently become an increasingly significant source of conflict financing in CAR.
What is the current security situation in CAR?
In response to escalating rebel activity before and after the December 2020 presidential elections, the Central African army, supported by Wagner mercenaries and Rwandan troops, launched a significant counteroffensive in 2021. For the first time since the start of the civil war, the government progressively regained control over much of the territory, including most major cities and towns. However, armed groups pushed to the periphery, increasingly adopted guerrilla tactics, looting mining sites and targeting miners and traders, including in diamond-rich zones like Bria and Bakouma. The northeastern region, moreover, has remained beyond government control, dominated by armed groups exploiting diamonds and gold.
Over the past two years, some rebel factions have regained confidence and begun expanding their zones of influence again, leading to an increase in the number of violent incidents and clashes. These fights often pit rebels against Wagner forces and the national army in a struggle for control over lucrative mining sites in the northwest, centre, and northeast. The combination of rebels’ hit-and-run tactics and Wagner’s focus on securing strategic resource control highlights the deep entanglement of armed conflict and natural resource exploitation in CAR, perpetuating instability and undermining governance in mining areas.
Meanwhile, worsening insecurity and restricted access have hampered effective monitoring by NGOs, humanitarians, the UN peace-keeping mission MINUSCA, UN experts and other actors, leaving much of the mining sector under opaque control. Artisanal miners, in particular, have suffered, facing robbery, exploitation, and violence in an increasingly volatile environment.
What led the Kimberley Process to lift the embargo?
The Russian Federation first put the lifting of the CAR embargo on the agenda in 2020-2021 when it chaired the KP. In 2024, under the chairmanship of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) pressure to lift the embargo intensified significantly. The UAE Chair visited the country, on his own initiative, in February to underscore the feasibility of a KP review mission to evaluate the country’s compliance with the KP’s monitoring requirements. Although this mission was originally announced in 2019, it had been postponed due to security concerns. The CAR government hosted the mission in September 2024, and its findings were presented and debated during the November KP Plenary in Dubai.
These debates, however, were largely political, with minimal attention given to UN and NGO reports detailing ongoing security concerns in mining areas. As argued by the KP Civil Society Coalition, of which IPIS is a member, “[t]hese dynamics have oversimplified a deeply complex situation, reducing it to a binary debate on lifting the embargo when, in fact, we needed a thoughtful assessment of where the KP has fallen short and how we can better support CAR’s diamond mining communities”.
What’s next for the CAR?
The KP plenary celebrated the lifting of the embargo, but failed to outline an actionable plan to address the root causes of issues like fraud, corruption, smuggling, insecurity and devastation in diamond mining areas. Presenting this decision as the conclusion of a problem rather than the beginning of a new solution, jeopardizes the chances for meaningful improvement. In their eagerness to present this as a success story, KP participants further distanced themselves from the realities on the ground, as highlighted by two contrasting developments in the same week. The UN Security Council extended MINUSCA’s mandate, citing continued threats from armed groups to CAR’s security and stability. Simultaneously, the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) suspended CAR raising questions about the government’s genuine commitment to transparency and accountability.
For CAR to move forward, targeted efforts and sustained support will be necessary to improve security and enhance the well-being of communities living in or near mining sites. In its closing address at the KP Dubai Plenary, the Civil Society Coalition proposed a roadmap to tackle these challenges, with key elements including:
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- Ending impunity for those who profit from smuggling and exploit communities to launder vast sums through illegal trade.
- Developing and implementing a supportive policy and legal framework for artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), backed by strong oversight and enforcement, so that legitimate, community-benefiting trade can flourish.
- Engaging in a genuine fight against corruption and fraud that will ensure that the benefits of CAR’s diamond resources reach the state and especially the communities, rather than lining the personal pockets of a few.
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What’s next for the KP?
By lifting the embargo on CAR, the KP has essentially declared that conflict diamonds no longer exist. Even if one would agree with that conclusion, this should raise profound existential questions for the KP. If the KP cannot recognize conflict diamonds in CAR—a country where armed actors still exploit parts of the diamond sector in ways that clearly fall within its narrow mandate—it is difficult to imagine it identifying conflict diamonds ever again. It is therefore very likely that this will be the KP’s last embargo, and thus its last intervention, as embargoes are the only tool in its limited toolbox.
The latest reform cycle, once more, shows little promise of addressing these challenges, as the current geopolitical crisis even further removes the KP’s 86 member countries from the required consensus to make decisions. Discussions on broadening the conflict diamond definition are again blocked, while broader questions about the KP’s modus operandi are not even raised.
This development raises serious questions about the necessity and relevance of the KP’s current structure. If the KP claims the conflict diamond issue is resolved, why maintain an expensive peer-review system and require hundreds of delegates to travel internationally multiple times a year? One should therefore ask whether its operations should not be scaled back to a more streamlined trade mechanism that reflects its limited scope and ambition.
Implications for the diamond industry
With the lifting of the embargo on CAR diamonds, the trade has been unconditionally and immediately reopened, save for a requirement for CAR to report progress at the 2025 KP intersessional and plenary meetings. This decision effectively declares zones long dominated by criminal networks, armed groups, and, more recently, Wagner mercenaries as open for global trade. While these malign actors have historically managed to sell CAR diamonds through illicit channels, the lifting of the embargo now flings the front gate wide open.
Moreover, the expected spike in legal exports from CAR could inadvertently provide a cover to mask smuggled or illicit diamonds within legitimate trade. For instance, Russia could in theory exploit this situation to funnel sanctioned diamonds into CAR and export them as CAR-origin without even needing to forge KP certificates. Normally, a sharp increase in exports would raise suspicion, but in this case, it may be difficult to discern whether such growth is due to legitimate reductions in smuggling as all zones reopen for legal trade. This makes proactive and coordinated industry measures essential to uphold ethical standards and promote stability in CAR’s diamond sector.
The diamond industry must therefore exercise heightened vigilance. In recent years, most formal diamond exports from CAR have flowed through Dubai, UAE, a hub likely to attract an even greater share of this trade in the post-embargo environment. From Dubai, these diamonds are distributed to major centers such as Antwerp, Mumbai, Ramat Gan, New York, and Hong Kong.
Encouragingly, the G7 sanctions on Russian diamonds have spurred significant advances in the industry’s traceability efforts, which could prove instrumental in addressing the risks posed by the reopening of CAR’s diamond trade. When combined with genuine due diligence, the improving traceability solutions offer a pathway to ensure diamond purchases support development in CAR rather than fuelling crime and conflict.
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