The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a United Nations body that promotes peaceful use of nuclear energy, has approved several projects in collaboration with Qatar for the year 2022/2023.

Qatar’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change has teamed up with the UN’s IAEA to work on a number of projects in the field of nuclear research. Represented by the Department of Radiation and Chemical Protection, the ministry says the planned projects will also cover areas of food safety and will be conducted with the cooperation of the Ministry of Public Health. Other objectives include strengthening Qatar’s capabilities in radiological diagnosis of diseases with Hamad Medical Corporation and Sidra Medicine and bolstering the supervision and monitoring of radiological applications in the environmental, medical, and industrial fields.

The project will also cover the establishment of a secondary calibration laboratory for radioactive devices to improve radiation protection programs in Qatar; the lab is expected to be the largest of its kind in the middle east. Several authorities and institutions are expected to be involved in addition to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change which will be primarily overseeing these initiatives.

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Currently, Qatar has over 35 technical cooperation projects with the IAEA, of which 23 are regional, 10 are on a national scale, and 2 of which are being conducted at a global level.

The projects cover a range of areas including agriculture in improving animal production, medicine, and human health in combating diseases, the environmental sector to combat pollution and climate change, and other areas in aiming to strengthen control over radiological activities and peaceful use of atomic energy.