During the high-stakes contract renewals, Masisi shocked the mining world by threatening to walk away from De Beers entirely if the corporate giant did not concede to Botswana's demands for a bigger slice of the value chain.
Policy options Botswana could pursue to capture more value
President Duma Boko has passionately argued for a majority stake, citing the profound injustice of a system where "De Beers gets 70% of its diamonds from Botswana, and we only own 15% of it". For him, buying the company is an act of economic liberation, a chance to seize control of the entire value chain from mine to market. During the high-stakes contract renewals, Masisi shocked the
I can't reproduce the full copyrighted text of that article here, but I can summarize the key arguments typically made in such analyses, as well as the general debate around Botswana's diamond deal with De Beers.
De Beers moved its global rough diamond sorting and sales operations from London to Gaborone in 2013, anchoring Botswana as a global gemstone capital. I can't reproduce the full copyrighted text of
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For over five decades, the partnership between the Government of Botswana and De Beers has been heralded as the "diamond standard" of public-private partnerships. Through their 50/50 joint venture, Debswana, the Southern African nation transformed from one of the world's poorest countries into a stable, middle-income economy. However, as the global diamond landscape shifts—confronted by lab-grown competition, economic downturns, and the rise of synthetic alternatives—Botswana has increasingly questioned if it is getting a "raw deal." Through their 50/50 joint venture, Debswana, the Southern
The ultimate success of this relationship no longer rests on De Beers' benevolence, but on Botswana's execution. If Gaborone can successfully manage its new market share, eliminate corruption within its state-owned entities, and genuinely diversify its economy away from minerals, this partnership will stand as history's greatest example of a developing nation successfully rewriting its destiny with a multinational corporate giant.
Botswana and De Beers have a long-running, high-stakes partnership: Debswana, the 50:50 joint venture, has powered much of Botswana’s post‑independence prosperity by mining and marketing the country’s gem‑quality diamonds. Recently that relationship and the structure of diamond sales have come under scrutiny as market shocks (lab‑grown diamonds, tariffs, weaker demand) and renegotiated sales arrangements change who captures value.
The Okavango Diamond Company’s allocation of rough diamonds instantly jumped from 25% to 30%, with a contractual trajectory to scale up to 50% over the next decade . This effectively gives Botswana a massive, independent commercial footprint in the global diamond market.