Ahmed Bin Sulayem

KP WANTS TO FIGHT CONFLICT DIAMONDS WITH “BLOCKCHAIN” TECHNOLOGY

Earlier this month, the UAE Kimberley Process Chair 2016, Ahmed Bin Sulayem, published the first mid-term report in the history of the Kimberley Process. The report offers a preview of activities for the remainder of the year and highlights key initiatives such as on-site visits to the major diamond producing nations of Africa, the initiation of a series of Valuation Seminars and a proposal which explores the use of “blockchain” technology to help enhance security measures and prevent conflict diamonds from entering the diamond pipeline.

In its report, the KP maintains a commitment to “the examination of [“blockchain” technology’s] benefits, and is working on a potential pilot project that would use “blockchain” technology to monitor KP statistics”. According to several news sources, Bin Sulayem met with providers of the technology to mull ways of adapting the tool to the KP Certification Scheme.

Blockchain is a list of transactions that allows users to share a digital ledger across a network of computers without the need for a central authority to clear said transactions. The big plus: it makes it impossible to tamper with records.

Therefore, adoption of the tech could potentially help eradicate false certificates and reduce the impact of human error while uploading data. However, the report warns, “Adopting Blockchain technology would be a long process requiring a great deal of research [… and] cost and complexity of implementation would also be significant”.

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