De Beers & UN Women’s Vision for Equality

UN Women

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(4 mins read)

October 2024

De Beers is pleased to be extending its global partnership with UN Women for a further five years, joining the newly formed HeForShe Alliance.

Driven by our dedication to shaping tomorrow, we have committed to increasing the representation of women in technical and leadership roles within our business, as we work towards achieving gender parity across our workforce by 2030, as part of our Building Forever sustainability goals.

De Beers will also invest an additional US$3 million to extend our AWOME (Accelerating Women-Owned Micro-Enterprises) pro-gramme in southern Africa, building on the $3 million of funding we committed to supporting women and girls in our producers countries when we first partnered with UN Women in 2017.

Our five-year partnership will focus on protecting the natural world and partnering with local communities on our conservation efforts.

Since then, AWOME has been run in partnership with UN Women and local government, providing business training and mentorship to more than 2,400 women entrepreneurs in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, as well as qualifying over 50 local trainers to ensure the programme’s sustainable future. The additional funding will expand the programme and enable our journey towards achieving our Building Forever Goal of supporting 10,000 women entrepreneurs by 2030.

In addition, more than 60 scholarships have been granted to young women in Canada to pursue STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) opportunities and we’ve engaged more than 3,700 girls in southern Africa through STEM workshops, ideations’ and mentorship programmes in partnership with award-winning organisation WomEng. Last year De Beers committed to extend this work, setting a Building Forever Goal of engaging 10,000 girls in STEM by 2030.

De Beers is committed to ensuring all diamonds are sourced in a manner that honours the social, ethical and environmental expectations shared with our customers. This partnership is one initiative that ensures diamonds have a positive impact along their incredible journey and the brand’s long-term commitment to Building Forever.