Elsewhere as well, and sometimes closer to home, WDC members are reinvesting in the communities in which they operate and upon which they depend.
WDC members stepping up to the plate, transforming lives from the grass roots up
![](https://www.worlddiamondcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Blog-logo-David-horizontal.jpg)
Elsewhere as well, and sometimes closer to home, WDC members are reinvesting in the communities in which they operate and upon which they depend.
The May edition of Forbes Afrique, the French-language version of the influential economic periodical that focuses specifically on African affairs, has listed Marie-Chantal Kaninda, Executive Director of the World Diamond Council (WDC), as one the continent’s 100 most influential women.
The KP is in the final few months of a three-year review and reform process, which is scheduled to end at the 2019 KP Plenary Meeting, which will be held in the Indian capital of New Delhi from November 11 to November 15.
It is a system that can be wieldy and cumbersome, but also effective, having the ability to eliminate the presence of almost all rough diamonds financing civil war within just several years of the KPCS being launched in 2003.
Marie-Chantal Kaninda, WDC Executive Director, was a guest of honor at a conference focusing on the role of women in the mining sector, held in Abidjan in the West African state of Côte d’Ivoire on May 31, 2019.
Rough diamonds purchased by GemFair and exported from Sierra Leone are KP-certified, and eligible to be traded legally in the major markets.
The WDC President called on participants to agree on the measures necessary for strengthening the KPCS’s impact, both in improving the lives and prospects of communities in the mining areas, and also in meeting the expectations of consumers in the jewelry markets.
He was speaking during the Opening Session of the 2019 Intersessional Meeting of the Kimberley Process (KP), which opened today in the Indian city of Mumbai.