James Kirby leans on the handrail at the observation platform overlooking the 300-metre deep Jwaneng pit in Botswana and recalls the suffering that afflicted the world’s richest diamond mine. “At the start of the decade, we were attending an Aids funeral once a month,” he says. As mining manager at Debswana, a partnership company between De Beers and the Botswana government, he saw the economic as well as the human costs of HIV, with the stress of coping with bereavement and the constant need to find, hire and train skilled workers to replace those who died, became incapacitated or took time off work because of illness. In 2000, 26 employees across Debswana’s four mines died from Aids-related illnesses – nearly 60 per cent of total deaths. A further 17 took early retirement on health grounds linked to HIV – three-quarters of the total.

Among a workforce of a 6,500, the company estimated that HIV prevalence was more than 30 per cent. As the epidemic intensified in the late 1990s, Debswana became a pioneer out of necessity in corporate involvement in HIV programmes: for the mining sector, the country, the region and around the world. It continues to be a leader in the field.