In a remarkable achievement in boosting the empowerment of women within the UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), women now constitute 44% of the Authority’s total workforce and 43% of them hold leadership positions.
Since its inception in 2009, FANR has placed great importance on empowering and elevating the status of Emiratis in the nuclear regulatory sector to deliver the UAE’s vision in developing its peaceful nuclear energy program and ensure its sustainability.
Empowerment was given equal importance among Emirati men and women within FANR, supporting the government’s vision in gender balance.
Over the past 13 years, FANR has achieved significant strides in empowering women and engaging them in its regulatory activities by implementing capacity-building programmes such as the Developee Engineering Programme targeted towards young and fresh graduates to build their capabilities in the nuclear regulatory sector. Nineteen of the 31 graduating trainees were young women.
FANR has also supported the development of Emirati women specialized in the nuclear regulation sector. Outstanding achievements in this drive included the first three female Emiratis specialized in nuclear law, the first female holding a PhD degree in nuclear engineering as well as the first Emirati female to become an official international nuclear non-proliferation inspector and who has completed a nine-months program at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“Emirati females have been playing an indispensable role in regulating the nuclear and radiological sectors in the United Arab Emirates,” FANR Director-General Christer Viktorsson said.
“Following UAE Government efforts, FANR has been supporting and empowering Emiratis, particularly women, to build their capabilities to ensure the safety and the security of all activities using nuclear or radioactive sources. We are proud to see Emirati Females contributing significantly in such a knowledge-intensive sector.”
For FANR officials, building Emirati capability in the nuclear regulatory sector is a priority for the Authority to ensure the sustainability of its regulatory mandate.
Knowledge-driven and innovation-based programmes have been developed to help build and maintain Emirati skills to regulate the sector.
