National Liaison Officers (NLOs) and National Liaison Assistants (NLAs) play a key role in the delivery of the technical cooperation programme in Member States, with important responsibilities in project design, implementation and monitoring.  To ensure that NLOs and NLAs are well prepared to conduct their important work, new NLOs and NLAs, upon their appointment, are invited to the IAEA Headquarters in Vienna for training in standard technical cooperation (TC) procedures and corresponding Agency related activities.

From 4-8 April 2016, the IAEA welcomed 9 NLOs and NLAs from the African region to the Agency’s Vienna headquarters for an induction workshop. The workshop offered guidance to the incoming national liaison officers and assistants on how the IAEA’s TC programme functions, with the aim of enhancing programme implementation and effectiveness in participating African Member States. After an opening address by Shaukat Abdulrazak, Director of the Division for Africa in the Department of Technical Cooperation, the attending NLOs and NLAs were briefed on a wide range of topics, including TC strategy and partnership, the process of TC programme formulation, implementation and reporting, and radiation safety requirements. The workshop participants were also given an introduction to the broad scope of nuclear applications.

The attending NLOs and NLAs represented 8 countries in the African region, namely: Angola, Burundi Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Swaziland and Sudan.