Report - Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center

What Price Nuclear Governance? Funding the International Atomic Energy Agency

| March 24, 2016

This report on the International Atomic Energy Agency proposes a grand bargain to address the organization’s longstanding funding challenges. What Price Nuclear Governance? Funding the IAEA, by MTA Associate Trevor Findlay, considers critical questions facing the IAEA’s budget and finance, and concludes that:

  • funding is insufficient for the Agency to carry out its core functions
  • increasing reliance on voluntary funding is problematic
  • the budget negotiation process is not as effective or streamlined as it should be
  • the current funding system is inequitable and inappropriate given changes in the nuclear industry since the IAEA was founded

Findlay recommends a number of steps to cut the Gordian knot between the funding of technical cooperation, nuclear safeguards, and nuclear security and break the impasse on IAEA funding, including:

  • the shielding system for nuclear safeguards must be ended
  • a Nuclear Emergency Fund and IAEA Endowment should be established  to provide greater financial stability to the Agency
  • the IAEA should seek alternative funding sources besides member states through a proper resource mobilization strategy.

Download the full PDF of "What Price Nuclear Governance? Funding the International Atomic Energy Agency" (1.8 MB )

    For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
    For Academic Citation: Findlay, Trevor. “What Price Nuclear Governance? Funding the International Atomic Energy Agency.” Managing the Atom Project, Belfer Center, March 24, 2016.

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