Representatives from the four Regional/Cooperative Agreements have held a meeting of the Quadripartite Forum, on 31 May 2017 during the International Conference on the IAEA Technical Cooperation Programme: Sixty Years and Beyond – Contributing to Development., The goal of the meeting was to exchange experiences, information and best practices, as well as to explore common areas of inter-agreement collaboration.
The Quadripartite Forum comprises the four Regional/Cooperative Agreements under the auspices of the IAEA: AFRA, ARASIA, ARCAL and RCA, and provides a framework for interregional collaboration to promote and enlarge the contribution of nuclear science and technology to the socioeconomic development of their regions and States Parties.
The Quadripartite Forum meeting was attended by the Chairs of the four Regional/Cooperative Agreements and was chaired by H.E. Mr Marcel Fortuna Biato, Resident Representative of Brazil to the IAEA, as ARCAL Chairperson.
During the meeting, Mr Atef Abdel Fattah, AFRA Chairperson, briefed the meeting on AFRA’s experience with regards to enhancement of the sustainability of national nuclear institutions, through the implementation of a technical cooperation (TC) project under the AFRA agreement, which has successfully helped countries to improve their management practices, income generation and policy to protect innovation through intellectual property policy, licensing and patenting, and to adopt quality procedures in their respective nuclear institutions.
Mr Bilal Nsouli, ARASIA Chairperson and Mr Jafar Sadique, RCA Chairperson, also shared experiences in their respective regions and agreed with all the participants to explore future opportunities for collaboration, including the possibility for the most experienced nuclear institutions to host scientific visits for the heads of nuclear institutions from other regions
The next meeting of the Quadripartite Forum will be held during the 61st IAEA General Conference in September 2017, in order to continue strengthening collaboration and to follow up on the progress made in the implementation of the previous meeting’s agreements.
