30 participants from 17 countries across the region of Asia and the Pacific gathered in Vienna from 18-22 April 2016 for a practical workshop to fully draft, with the assistance of international transport experts, national implementing regulations for transport of radioactive materials in accordance with the IAEA safety standards, specifically the Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (IAEA Safety Standards Series No. SSR-6).
“I encourage all Member States to continually increase their efforts to comply with the International Basic Safety Standards for Radiation Protection and Safety of Radiation Sources and the Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Materials, in order to ensure that people and the environment are protected from the adverse effects of ionizing radiation”, said Ms. Ana Raffo-Caiado, Acting Deputy Director General, Department of Technical Cooperation, during her opening statement.
The delivery of radioactive material for the medical, agriculture and industrial sectors is both national and international in nature and therefore the development of the region with regard to transport safety regulatory oversight is of high importance.
By the end of the workshop, participants had provided a clear status of the National Transport Regulations in their countries; had discussed and evaluated the path forward to putting regulations into place; demonstrated practical progress on the drafting of regulations and established plans suitable for the different Member States to progress in the implementation of national regulations. With the diversity of regulatory conditions and challenges across the region, the participants were able to create, improve or finalise their national regulations under the supervision of IAEA experts from Australia and India and using guidance from the IAEA transport safety specialists. In particular, 11 Member States prepared their first drafts of transport regulations at the workshop.
The workshop was one of the four similar activities organized to run in parallel in the context of the Global Meeting of Transport Safety Regional Projects: Drafting School for Transport Regulations which brought together peers from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean with the same goal of refining the regulations portfolio. This provided a forum for the exchange of information and best practices among transport safety professionals from around the world as well as taking benefit from broader expertise shared by the many experts drawn in by the IAEA.
The workshop was held within the framework of the IAEA regional technical cooperation (TC) project RAS/9/067 “Strengthening an Effective Compliance Assurance Regime for the Transport Safety of Radioactive Material” with a financial contribution provided by the European Union (EU) under a partnership arrangement with the IAEA.
RAS/9/067 is one of the five safety-related regional TC projects in the region of Asia and the Pacific supported by the EU through the Nuclear Safety Cooperation Instrument as part of a larger EU initiative to enhance nuclear safety around the world.
For more information on the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material, please visit www.iaea.org/transport.
This activity was implemented in partnership between:
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