By Dipo Olowookere
The Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), in its relentless effort to empower its staff with skills and knowledge to perform its regulatory functions to align with international standards, has collaborated again with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to organize a training workshop for its staff on legislative and regulatory framework for Nuclear Power Programme in Abuja.
The workshop’s main objective was to discuss various regulatory approaches, regulations and guides development plans, and provide guide for licensing processes for nuclear power plants.
It also covered the establishment and implementation of regulatory framework for safety, review and assessment of the applicant’s submission, authorizations of nuclear facilities, inspections and enforcement guidelines and capacity building of the regulatory staff.
Experts handling the training workshop are Zia Shah from IAEA, Peter Bester from South Africa, Majid Akhtar from Pakistan and Iuril Iesypenko from Ukraine.
The vast experiences of the experts were shared throughout the workshop, giving deep insight to practical experiences of other countries especially as it pertains to the licensing processes and management in their respective countries.
A total of 41 participants drawn from various departments of the authority attended the training which held from the September 11 to 15, 2017 at the NNRA head office, Abuja.
It is expected that at the end of this workshop, participants would come away with useful lessons on Legislative and Regulatory Framework for Nuclear Power Program.
Nigeria and in particular NNRA, have benefitted from workshops such as this, as a result of organizing such mutual assistance programmes as the IAEA in its relentless effort at improving the regulatory framework of member States.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka