Recent and Future IAEA Directions

      During recent years, the Agency has faced a zero-realgrowth budget policy. This has forced the Secretariat to find more efficient ways to perform its tasks in order to cope with the growing demands placed upon it by Member States. These tasks must be completed within the additional constraint of a continuously increasing workload. Last year the Agency reached the extreme where certain essential activities were suspended due to lack of funds. There was even the possibility that staff would not be paid in November. Thus, there was a "redalert" warning at the end of last year. This uncertainty in the Agency's financial situation established a new basis for a very detailed analysis of the proposed budget for 1989 and 1990. The proposed program and budget for the Department of Safeguards became the subject of intense scrutiny by Member States during meetings of the Board of Governors of the Agency and its Administrative and Budgetary Committee. In order to cope with the tight financial situation in 1987 each Department of the Agency was required to justify, as clearly as possible, its requirements. In recent years, the policy of the Agency has been to work in a more transparent way in order that Member States are able to judge and comment, not only about the budget, but also about the development and implementation of our activities. This is particularly evident in the Safeguards Department Member States occurs at two levels: the governmental level and the industry or operator level. Our activities are governed by the IAEA-Member State Agreement for the Application of Safeguards. In subsidiary documents concluded under the Agreement we have to spell out how we intend to perform safeguards activities, inspections, evaluations, and other tasks in order to comply with established requirements. The Safeguards Department has issued evaluation criteria covering all safeguards activities. Each year the Department issues a Safeguards Implementation Report in which detailed summaries of the previous year's activities are presented. There is a new initiative in this area. We have begun the development of a unified set of implementation and evaluation criteria which we hope will become effective January 1, 1990. The staff of the Safeguards Department is now working on the first draft of this document and we expect to conduct consultations with Member States during the early part of 1989. Another initiative that is very important is our intention to be much more responsive to the requests of the Member States and the nuclear industry in addressing the operational exigencies of the nuclear facilities we inspect. We intend to be more effective, less intrusive, and as practical as possible in the performance of our tasks.