Grim realities behind Debswana’s birthday cheer

Mbongeni Mguni | Thursday July 2, 2026 12:38

Debswana’s Ya Masa strategy, covering the years 2025 to 2029, officially marks the diamond giant’s first expansion in mandate since it was established 57 years ago.

Under the strategy, Debswana intends to rebuild its core diamond business, but also leverage the untapped commercial opportunities it has such as infrastructure, while also striking out into new ventures.

The last part of the strategy represents a bold shift for a company that has resisted moving away from its core business over the decades. To be precise, Debswana has invested in businesses outside diamonds over the years, such as mining contracting, insurance, a pension fund and a primary school.

However, the company’s core has remained diamond mining, the business that built it into the global symbol of ethical, development-focussed and minerals governance leadership.

Times have changed, however, and with diamonds still battling to fully recover from a three-year downturn in demand and prices, the Debswana board has seen the need for a paradigm shift, if the transformational impact on the economy it made in the past, is to continue.

“This strategy is not a departure from our legacy,” managing director, Andrew Motsomi said at the anniversary celebrations on Tuesday. “It is an evolution of it. “The same pioneering spirit that built the name Orapa, Jwaneng, Letlhakane and Damtshaa, is the same spirit that must now guide us into the future.”

The company’s 57th anniversary was celebrated through coordinated, live events in Gaborone, Orapa and Jwaneng, with workers, contractors and other partners turning out in strong numbers.

However, the grim reality behind the celebrations lies in the numbers. De Beers’ figures show that in 2023, which represents the start of the current downturn, average realised prices of diamonds fell by 22 percent. Prices have continued sliding since then, falling by about 20 percent between the first quarter of 2025 and the corresponding period this year.

A confluence of structural and cyclical factors, including shocks such as US trade policy and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have conspired against the precious stones and producers such as Debswana.

A strategy shift was not only timely but inevitable for the company, especially as it seeks to ensure that its impact continues beyond the life of the mines.

“The question before us is not whether Debswana has been successful. “Instead, it is how do we ensure that the Debswana that transformed Botswana over the past 57 years remains relevant and impactful for generations to come. “The environment that enabled our success has changed and continues to change,” said Motsomi.

The Ya Masa strategy involves “focus weights” or the percentage of attention to be paid to the three areas or “pathways” being looked at between now and 2029. A 70 percent focus weight is being applied on rebuilding the core diamond business, in order to maximise the values from the available resources.

A 20 percent focus weight has been assigned on the second pathway which involves Debswana leveraging and commercialising on its infrastructure, expertise, talent, networks and capabilities built up over the past 57 years.

These two pathways will ultimately support the third pathway, which involves the strategic diversification into non-diamond investments.

“Focusing ten percent of efforts, we will begin building the foundations of the next Debswana, entirely new ventures capable of becoming future growth engines that are structurally independent of the challenges inherent in the global diamond market,” Motsomi said.

The timelines in the strategy also follow the same prioritisation, with Debswana planning to first survive and stabilise through a focus on the core business, before building on that stability to enhance resilience and then thriving from 2029 onwards through the addition of the new value creation ventures.

While the expansion of focus represents new ground for Debswana, the company has a path to follow in its ventures outside diamonds. In 2022, Debswana set up Naledi Mining Services, a mining contractor, which broke into the market powered by the diamond company’s decades of financial and technical expertise.

Naledi took over the mammoth Cut 9 project and is eying more opportunities in the country and the region, where well-established mining contractors dominate the market.

Debswana will look to take a leaf from its own subsidiary, by leveraging on its expertise to identify impactful ventures outside of diamonds.

Already, there are reports that the diamond group is looking at opportunities such as solar power generation, biofuel generation, data monetisation, local manufacturing, small-scale mining, repair and maintenance, sustainable eco-tourism and others.

Debswana has also reached agreement with the Botswana Development Corporation, which is the government’s diversification agency with a track record of building up impactful entities over the decades.

The diamond company has already established a Business Development office to tackle the new ventures, in a sign of the attention being paid to the new strategy.

“Future generations will judge us not by how well we protected the past, but how boldly and responsibly we prepare for the future,” Motsomi said.