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’ national 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 commitments made by IAEA member states at 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,” he said, noting that he has proposed a 2.1 percent budget increase for the agency over that time period. The IAEA’s total regular budget for 2016 was 361 million euros.
In his speech, Amano highlighted the first-ever upcoming IAEA conference on the agency’s technical cooperation program, which will be held at the end of May to “raise awareness of the achievements and potential of the [technical cooperation] program and ensure greater recognition of our work on assisting sustainable development.” The IAEA through this program helps member states build capacities in the peaceful use of nuclear technology, including for areas such as human health and nuclear power.
Amano also noted that the IAEA’s low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel bank project in Kazakhstan is on schedule, with the storage facility set to be built and ready to receive material by this September. The government of Kazakhstan and the IAEA in 2015 signed a formal agreement establishing the facility that will provide a reliable supply of low-enriched reactor fuel to IAEA member states to support civilian nuclear power programs while deterring countries from pursuing enrichment technology that could be used in nuclear-weapon production.
“We continue to work on the LEU Procurement Plan and aim to have an LEU acquisition contract in place before the end of 2017,” Amano said.
The Board of Governors on Wednesday reappointed Amano to another four-year term of office, extending his tenure until November 30, 2021.
