The International Atomic Energy Agency is finalizing its nuclear security plan for the next four years, Director General Yukiya Amano said Monday at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting being held all week in Vienna, Austria.
The Board of Governors, one of the agency’s policy-making bodies, meets five times per year to develop recommendations on the IAEA’s program and budget, consider applications for membership, and approve safeguards agreements. The Board’s 35 members for 2016-2017 include the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, and Germany.
In his introductory statement to the board, Amano said informal consultations have begun on a final draft of the IAEA’s nuclear security plan for 2018-2021, which builds on resolutions of the General Conference and the ministerial declaration adopted during the agency’s nuclear security conference last December.
“Our focus is on concrete measures which will be of practical value to all countries as they work to strengthen nuclear security,” Amano said of the plan, which will outline the agency’s support for individual states’ nuclear security regimes and its coordination of international, regional, and bilateral initiatives offering nuclear security assistance worldwide.
The December conference brought together ministers from more than 50 countries to discuss carrying forward the commitments of IAEA member states from the now-defunct Nuclear Security Summit process. There, member states adopted a ministerial declaration reaffirming the IAEA’s role in facilitating international cooperation on nuclear security and committing themselves to enhancing their own national regimes to protect weapon-usable materials.
IAEA member states in January received an agency draft program and budget for 2018-2019. “There is increasing interest in the peaceful uses of nuclear technology and the need for agency nuclear verification activities is growing steadily,” Amano said, noting that he has proposed a 2.1 percent agency budget increase over that time period.
