About the Madison Dialogue

The Madison Dialogue was launched at a meeting in New York (on Madison Avenue), in August 2006. Participants in that meeting included EARTHWORKS, WWF, Partnership Africa Canada, Tiffany & Co. Foundation, The Responsible Jewellery Council (formerly the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices), the Diamond Development Initiative, Jewelers of America, Conservation International, Leber Jewelers and others.

Participants in the Madison Dialogue are working on a number of initiatives to promote sustainable development, best practice, and certification or assurance in the sector. These include the Kimberly Process, the Diamond Development Initiative, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), and efforts to certify fair-trade gold, diamonds and other minerals.

Initiatives to be Profiled

While there are a multitude of initiatives in this sector, the Madison Dialogue will focus on profiling those that meet the following criteria:

• Promoting Sustainable Development (We did not seek to define this term instead we accepted this as an intention.)
• Multi-Sector (Including, for example, commercial actors and NGOs or civil society groups in a direct role.)
• Working Towards Independent, 3rd Party Verification (Success, progress or effectiveness would be verified through an independent 3rd party -- i.e. not the participants themselves or associations representing a particular sector or sectors.)
• Transparent (The process or project would be open and transparent in its development, execution and reporting.)
• Others (We recognized that this may be a partial list of criteria and we welcome input and further development of these criteria.)

Facilitating Collaboration

At the New York meeting, Madison Dialogue participants agreed that one of the most useful outcomes of an ongoing dialogue such as this was the potential to increase information-flow and cross-sector collaboration. With information about these initiatives, participants could form self-initiated working groups or simply stay abreast of developments on a specific project or initiative.

To facilitate communication and potential collaboration we agreed to --

1. create a list-serve for easy information exchange,
2. create a simple web site that allowed for posting of project information, reports, schedules, etc., and
3. give the dialogue a name so that it had a reference point.

Since we were meeting at on office on Madison Avenue in New York, we agreed to call this the Madison Dialogue.

A Communication Vehicle

We do not envision the Madison Dialogue developing any of its own programs or initiatives. Instead we see it as a vehicle for communication and dialogue only. In addition to these basis communication functions we might seek to organize similar meetings like this in the future.

Madison Dialogue meeting report and papers:

• The Madison Dialogue Meeting Report, August 31, 2006, New York
• Madison Dialogue Ethical Jewelry Summit Agenda
, The Agenda for the Madison Dialogue Ethical Jewelry Summit to be held on October 25th & 26th, 2007.
• Madison Dialogue EJS Summmary