The IAEA provided development assistance to 131 countries and territories in 2014, seven more than 2013, according to the IAEA’s Technical Cooperation Report, published along with its Annual Report this month. The report will be discussed at the IAEA’s General Conference in September.
In Africa, technical cooperation projects in 2014 focused on transfer of nuclear technologies for use in health, food and agriculture, water resource management, environmental protection, industrial applications, energy planning and radiation safety and security. In Asia, Europe and Latin America, a primary focus was on strengthening nuclear safety and security, human health, as well as food and agriculture.
The IAEA works with Member States to integrate the peaceful applications of nuclear technology into their overall development plans. It signed new Country Programme Frameworks with 13 countries in 2014: Argentina, Cameroon, Chile, Croatia, Cuba, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mauritius, Montenegro, Mozambique, Namibia and Slovakia. This brought the total number of Country Programme Frameworks by the end of 2014 to 91.
The IAEA has continued to encourage the participation of women in its technical cooperation activities. The trend of gradually increasing participation of women in training programmes continued last year.
The Technical Cooperation Fund received 64.4 million euros in voluntary contributions in 2014, which supported projects involving 3461 expert and lecturer assignments, 5285 meeting participants and other project personnel, 2830 participants in 187 regional and interregional training courses and 1677 fellows and scientific visitors implemented under the IAEA’s Technical Cooperation Programme.
