Francophone Africa wants to harmonise its data and put at the disposal of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) information which can be used by the agency to define assistance programmes for member countries. This is within a framework of an international workshop grouping some 35 radiation experts from 16 Francophone African countries which went underway at the Hotel Franco in Yaounde yesterday March 14, 2011. It is jointly organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the National Radiation Protection Agency. The overriding objective is to train radiation experts in Francophone Africa on the use of a Radiation Safety Information Management System, code-named, “RASIMS”, a web-based database system in which information regarding the state of radiation protection infrastructure of various States can be found.

In a speech during the opening ceremony, the Director General of Cameroon’s Radiation Protection Agency, Dr Augustine Simo, said information management system is essential for IAEA to help member countries to improve their national infrastructure because, “the data shows the strengths and weaknesses of national radiation infrastructure”.

Corroborating Dr Simo, Hilaire Mansoux, a radiation expert and one of the two resource persons from IAEA for the workshop, said the workshop is about training people on how to use electronic data base to collect and analyse information about the radiation safety infrastructure in all their countries. “Once this information is collected and updated, it is being used by IAEA to define assistance programme to member countries”, he said. “We are here to train people so that they can understand and describe the status of their national infrastructure in this system during which we verify the information and based on this we address our assistance programme”, he stressed.

For five days, (March 14-18), the participants will, through paper presentations and plenary discussions, handle topics like international standards and guide on radiation safety, strategies of identifying the needs of member countries on radiation safety, thematic safety areas and radiation waste and safety infrastructure profiles, among others.