Zero-Real Growth Budgets and External Support: New Directions for IAEA Safeguards Support Programs

Since the early 1980s the IAEA's Board of Governors has imposed a policy of zero-real growth on Agency budgets. Through the mid-1980s increased efficiencies and elimination of low Eriority programs permitted limited growth in igh priority program areas, such as safeguards. However, safeguards budgets have not grown in purchasing power for the last several years, and will not into the 1900s, though quantities of nuclear material and numbers of facilities under safeguards will continue to increase. Another development of the last decade is the system of external support for IAEA safeguards through voluntary national programs. The roles and objectives of safeguards Support Programs have evolved substantially since the U.S. Program of Technical Assistance to IAEA Safeguards (POTAS) was established in 1977. This paper examines recent trends in the roles and objectives of safeguards support programs; discusses the nature of the challenge now facing safeguards; and offers some thoughts on how safeguards support programs can most effectively assist the Department of Safeguards.