IAEA TRAINING FOR PERFORMING STATE EVALUATIONS

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is beginning to implement its new strengthened safeguards system to better detect nuclear proliferation. Rather than only concentrating on detecting diversion or misuse in declared nuclear facilities, the IAEA is also focusing on detecting undeclared nuclear activities that may be part of a nation=s clandestine nuclear weapons program. In order to detect undeclared nuclear activities, the IAEA is utilizing a larger and more diverse set of information. In 1997, the IAEA developed a method for systematically evaluating this country information. The process includes establishing and maintaining a State File of nuclear-related information on each country, and performing periodic evaluations of the information. These evaluations are documented in a State Evaluation Report for each country. Senior inspectors in the Operations Divisions are taking the lead in this work. Since this is a new responsibility, a training course has been developed to assist these inspectors in effectively integrating and evaluating the wide variety of available information. The course includes sessions on information sources, maintaining and using the State File, performing the State Evaluation, and an exercise. This paper describes the course content and reports on the April 1998 pilot course.