Board of Governors International Atomic Energy Ageny (IAEA) - Agenda item 3: Strengthening of the Agency’s technical cooperation activities – Technical Cooperation Report for 2025

Chair,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the EU and its Member States. Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Republic of Moldova, San Marino, Serbia, and Ukraine align themselves with this statement.

We thank the Director General for the Technical Cooperation Report 2025.

The EU and its Member States reiterate their longstanding support for the Agency’s activities in this field. Technical cooperation continues to play a vital role in helping Member States, especially the least developed countries, to use nuclear science and technology to facilitate peace, health and prosperity and to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals, agreed by all UN Member States, continue to underpin the work of the United Nations, including here in Vienna.

We welcome the Director General’s continued efforts in advancing the flagship initiatives, Rays of Hope, ZODIAC, Atoms4Food and NUTEC Plastics, which continue to receive broad support and contributions from IAEA members. We welcome the successful organisation of the 2025 Rays of Hope Forum in Ethiopia and the International High-Level Forum on NUTEC Plastics held in the Philippines, which helped to further strengthen international partnerships and raise awareness of these important areas. We underline the importance of ensuring coordination between these initiatives and other TC-related activities with other UN agencies, based on the country ownership and national priorities. Further synergies could also be sought with other initiatives, such as Horizon Europe, the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation, particularly in areas such as food safety and security and the promotion of sustainable solutions. We also recall that, together with Sudan, the EU Delegation is currently co-chairing the Group of Friends of Food Security in Vienna, and we encourage all IAEA Member States to join this important initiative.

We commend the Agency's continued efforts to strengthen human capacity-building through youth outreach, specialist schools, postgraduate support and legislative assistance, as well as support for Agency missions and peer reviews. We also welcome continued efforts to enhance TC among developing countries and triangular cooperation. 

The EU and its Member States commend the IAEA’s continued commitment to integrating gender perspectives into TC programme planning, design, implementation and evaluation. We welcome continued efforts to increase female participation in TC activities and encourage the IAEA to continue actively in advancing gender equality and gender mainstreaming, which remain our key priorities.

We reiterate the importance of a stronger focus on the actual needs of all Member States, while taking into account the particular challenges faced by least developed countries. We also support the demand-driven and non-discriminatory nature of the TCP. We welcome that health and nutrition, food and agriculture, and safety and security continue to represent the largest areas of TC programme disbursement in 2025. 

Chair,

In times of financial constraints, we welcome the Agency's efforts to achieve a more effective and efficient TC Programme. We encourage further prioritisation of initiatives and projects, further in-house cooperation and coordination, and further transparency to avoid duplication. We also note the Agency's efforts to improve project design, quality monitoring and evaluation, including through the use of verifiable and transparent indicators to assess results, sustainability and areas for further development.

Contributions from EU Member States and the European Commission together amounted to more than €26 Mio in 2025. EU MS remain among the major contributors to the Agency’s Technical Cooperation Fund (TCF), along with extra-budgetary contributions from EU MS and the European Commission as well as in-kind support from the European Commission. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre supports, for example, the development of nuclear innovative cancer treatments, access to radioligand therapy in IAEA Member States as well as the production of certified reference materials and joint research work on marine litter. We encourage further resource mobilisation also from non-traditional donors.

With these comments, we take note of the reports under consideration of this item.

Thank you, Chair.