The virtual meeting of National Liaison Officers with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for Europe region was held yesterday in Vienna.
In his introductory address, the Head of The IAEA Department of Technical Cooperation (TC) and Deputy Director General, Mr Dazhu Yang, introduced the new Director of Technical Cooperation Department for Europe (TCEU), Ms Eve-Külli Kala who was appointed on this position almost a month ago. By reminding on the pandemic aftermath that struck almost the entire modern world, powering beyond the health care systems capacities, Mr Yang underlined the importance of the efforts to focus nuclear science and technology towards sustainable development. He continued by pointing out that the IAEA supported 120 IAEA Member States in procuring COVID-19 testing kits, 23 of which were in the region of Europe.
Mr Yang also mentioned that the TC programme implementation in Europe was 87.9% in 2019, and that there are 87 national and 15 regional projects of new 2020-2021 cycle addressing the countries in our region.
“There are 25 million non-budgetary funds TCEU programme has at its disposal thanks to donors”, said Mr Yang, and added that the preparation of Technical Cooperation programme for the upcoming 2022-2023 cycle is in progress, and that the programme addressing the current regional challenges on one hand, and meeting the criteria of performance-based programme on the other, is being planned.
The new TCEU Department Director, Ms Kala expressed her hopes that her experience, particularly in bilateral and multilateral forums, would be of use in her future engagement in the IAEA. She also explained that the countries in the region are to cooperate in the review and update of two major documents:
- Regional Strategic Framework 2020-2025
- Regional Profile 2018-2021
She continued by referring to the wide and diverse scope of TC programme since it encompasses both, countries with and without NPPs, as well as the fact that the programme implementation is currently facing the challenges caused by COVID-19 pandemic.
The overview of the current 2020-2021 TCEU programme was presented by Mr Dazhu Yang, as the Head of TCEU Section 1. He remarked on the fact that the implementation rate is by 10% lower than last year.
Ms Sandra Steyskal, Head of TCEU Section 2, spoke on the programme preparation for 2023-2023 cycle, and stated that there are 87 national and 17 regional project proposals for Europe region, as well as that the requested budget for national and regional pogrammes amounts to 51,319,628 and 9,109,180 euros respectively.
Zoonotic Disease Integrated Action (ZODIAC) project was also presented whose aim is to strengthen the IAEA and its Member States capacities in addressing future threats and outbreaks of zoonotic diseases. It relies on 5 pillars:
- Establishment and upgrade of Member States capacities in early detection, diagnostics and monitoring of animal and zoonotic diseases on national and regional level, with the support focusing on technical cooperation programme;
- Development and availability of new technologies for detection and diagnostics of zoonotic diseases;
- Support in real-time decision-making process aiming at early intervention by Member States;
- Access to data on the impact of zoonotic disease on public health;
- Enabling the team coordinated by the IAEA to respond to any zoonotic disease.