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Corruption in the Angolan diamond sector

The diamond sector in Angola faces a variety of corruption challenges. These include elite capture of the diamond pipeline, commodity mispricing and corruption fuelled human rights abuses. While sectoral reforms such as ensuring traceability and adopting standards that go beyond conflict-free certification (as in the Kimberley Process) are important, attention must also be paid to the structural factors in the country’s political economy that enable capture of the Angolan diamond value chain. The incumbent government is currently making efforts to commercialise and reform the sector to attract foreign investment.

28 June 2022
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Corruption in the Angolan diamond sector

Main points

  • In the past, UNITA, the rebel group in Angola used profits from trading in diamonds to fund their struggle in the civil war.
  • The Angolan diamond sector faced corruption challenges such as elite capture of diamond value chains, commodity mispricing and corruption fueled human rights abuses.
  • A few anti-corruption approaches that could apply include addressing gaps in the diamond value chain, moving beyond only conflict-focused standards for diamond certification and ensuring traceability.

Cite this publication


Rahman, K. (2022) Corruption in the Angolan diamond sector. Bergen: U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Chr. Michelsen Institute (U4 Helpdesk Answer 2022:10)

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About the author

Kaunain Rahman

Kaunain received her Master's in Corruption and Governance from The Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex in the UK where her focus area of research was corruption in international business. She works as Research Coordinator at Transparency International (TI), and her main responsibilities lie with the Anti-Corruption Helpdesk.

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All views in this text are the author(s)’, and may differ from the U4 partner agencies’ policies.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

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