Diamond Marketing Requires Urgency

The Natural Diamond Council (NDC) is close to receiving the funds pledged under the Luanda Accord signed in July.

Two separate commitments came out of that meeting in the Angolan capital. The first was a structural one, with signatories agreeing to establish a mechanism that allocates 1% of rough-diamond sales to the NDC. The aim is to support the council’s budget from next year (2026) onward, and create a more stable way for the industry to fund consumer-facing marketing for natural diamonds.

The second commitment was more immediate. Angola pledged $8 million toward the NDC’s budget for this year (2025), and De Beers said it would match that amount on top of its existing contribution.

While it is not clear whether De Beers’ contribution was contingent on Angola’s, five months have passed, and three weeks of the holiday season have already slipped by, with none of the pledged funds released. Even with assurances that the money is now close to being freed up, the NDC has been operating with a $16 million gap that has constrained its ability to promote natural diamonds during the most important shopping period of the year.

Bureaucratic Headwinds

The delay highlights the complications of relying on governments for this kind of funding. The process comes with extra layers of bureaucracy, more red tape, and in some cases the need for legislative approval. It slows things down at a time when the industry is pushing for urgency.

For those reasons, implementing the 1% mechanism becomes more complicated, since it requires separate approval from each government that signed the Luanda Accord – Angola, Botswana, the DRC, Namibia, and Sierra Leone.

A likely workaround is for contributions to flow through the respective state-owned rough-selling agencies. In Botswana’s case, Okavango Diamond Company (ODC) is already an NDC member, while Angola’s Endiama is in the process of being co-opted. The producer countries appear set to treat their 1% allocation as a membership fee channeled through these parastatal bodies.

Regardless, contributions from the other countries remain less certain. That uncertainty, combined with the delay in Angola’s 2025 funding, has reignited the debate over who, or more accurately which segment of the market, should foot the bill for category marketing.

Shared Obligations

Should it sit with the producer countries, or with the mining companies that have carried the NDC until now. The answer is both. The mining companies on the NDC board – De Beers, Rio Tinto, Petra Diamonds, and RZM Murowa – are still expected to contribute. Meanwhile, miners that are not NDC members, notably Gem Diamonds and Lucara Diamond Corp., two of the more profitable companies in the segment, need to step up and participate too.

The NDC board is reviewing the bylaws governing member contributions for 2026, in line with the Luanda Accord commitments, according to sources familiar with the discussions. The shift would require member companies to contribute 1% of their revenue to the council.

It is understood that De Beers has committed to that, but it might be a stretch for the junior miners who have seen a sharp decline in sales and profitability in recent years. A different membership-fee structure may need to apply to them.

Trade Limitations

But what about a contribution from the trade. Several trading centers were signatories to the Luanda Accord, yet the trade has largely pushed back on the idea that it should fund industry marketing. India’s Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) has written the occasional check to the NDC, but in principle the global trade bodies have resisted any formal commitment from their members.

They maintain that the marketing fee is already embedded in the rough prices they pay. The mining companies may challenge that view, or even raise the question of whether a defined marketing premium should be added to their rough sales.

If the miners pursue that path, “category marketing expense” could end up as a line item on rough-sales invoices. The alternative is for mining companies to incorporate the charge into their pricing structure, though that is not feasible in the tender and auction circuit, where buyers bid and expect their winning price to reflect that offer.

For those producers that can build it into their pricing, mainly the high-volume suppliers selling through contract, diamantaires know the market well enough to spot any added premiums.

Besides, the rough trade is currently a buyers’ market. Sellers are struggling to move goods at their asking prices. Sightholders were reportedly under no obligation to take their allocated boxes at the latest sight. De Beers has been offering sharply discounted special deals to select clients, with those discounts reaching up to 45 percent in November, according to a report by tender house Trans Atlantic Gem Sales (TAGS).       

Where Responsibility Lies

Rough buyers would resist any attempt to pass on a marketing charge. And rightly so. The trade should not cover this expense. Its role is to add value by converting rough into polished and by enabling retailers to demonstrate that value. Jewelers are exempt from category-marketing duties because they shoulder the actual work of selling diamonds to consumers.

The responsibility sits with the producer countries, as custodians of the resource, and with the mining companies that have historically captured most of the upstream value and have driven industry-wide campaigns in the past, even if that was largely through one company, De Beers.

The Luanda Accord created the framework for such unity in theory, but it is now being tested in practice.

With the funding finally set to be released, the NDC can start to regain momentum. As it expands its board to align with the Luanda Accord, the aim is to deliver a marketing program that restores confidence in natural diamonds and builds value for the many stakeholders relying on its success. And for that to happen, the commitments made in Luanda need to be honored with real urgency going forward.

Image: Rough and polished diamonds, from the NDC's Diamond Learning Centre (NDC).