THE international community should assist developing countries to harness nuclear technologies to meet their diverse development challenges, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been told.
Leading the call during the IAEA’s 66th regular session that ended in Vienna on Friday was Dr Lans Gberie, Sierra Leone’s ambassador to the UN and other international organisations in Switzerland, Desmond Davies reports.
He said: ‘As the international community is faced with many challenges, now more than ever there is a dire need for multilateralism and strong effective multilateral organisations such as the IAEA.
‘We must continue collectively to fulfil the Agency’s objective of seeking to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world, as required under its Statute.
‘It is high time to bring out the human side of nuclear energy,’ Gberie added.
His call was echoed during the 33rd Meeting of African Regional Cooperative Agreement for Research, Development and Training related to Nuclear Science and Technology (AFRA) Representatives in the Austrian capital.
Shaukat Abdulrazak, Director for the Division for Africa at the IAEA, said the Agency was committed to supporting African countries to gain ‘effective access to nuclear technologies and applications’.
He said the goal was to ‘ensure that various opportunities are available through the peaceful applications of nuclear energy and are fit for purpose’.
The IAEA says that its priority areas for technical cooperation with AFRA are food and agriculture, human health, water resources management, industrial applications and radiation safety.
Climate mitigation, nutrition, and energy planning are additional priority areas.
Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the IAEA, said the organisation was looking forward to continue ‘working with African countries to ensure the transfer of peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology to Africa to deliver on priorities as highlighted in [AU] Agenda 2063’.
The US said it would donate €300 million to help AFRA’s work.
In Sierra Leone, according to Gberie, the IAEA was helping with the ‘development of technologies, technology transfer and capacity building in nuclear science and technology applications in food and climate smart agriculture, healthcare and the environment’.
Gberie pointed out that cancer ‘remains a leading cause of health problems and death’ in Sierra Leone due to ‘limited access to diagnosis and treatment’.
However, the IAEA has been providing specialist training for the country’s first radiotherapy facility in the country.
Gberie said that with the support of the Agency, Sierra Leone had developed a National Cancer Control Plan that was currently being reviewed by specialist agencies, including the IAEA and World Health Organisation.
He said Sierra Leone attached great importance to the mandate of the IAEA, of which the country had been a member since 1967.
‘[The] government is committed to promoting the peaceful use of nuclear science and technology to meet the SDGs and is working closely with the Agency to build the strong legal, institutional and regulatory framework needed for the safe application of nuclear science and technology,’ Gberie said
‘We strongly believe that the peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology provides solutions to socioeconomic challenges.’
Sierra Leone signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in New York on September 22 at the margins of the UN General Assembly.