IPNDV Partners Meet in Abu Dhabi for Fourth Plenary on Nuclear Disarmament Verification Efforts

NTI and more than twenty countries are gathered this week for
the fourth Plenary meeting of the International Partnership for Nuclear Disarmament
Verification (IPNDV). This innovative public-private partnership between the U.S.
Department of State and NTI is designed to advance understanding and capacity
around the complex technical challenges involved in nuclear verification. This
week’s Abu Dhabi Plenary, from November 1-3, is being hosted by the government
of the United Arab Emirates.

In opening remarks, Frank Rose, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control,
Verification and Compliance for the U.S. Department of State said the IPNDV
dialogue “has already increased
technical understanding among participating states…and it has begun to build
confidence among the partners.  It has
served as a kind of ‘science diplomacy,’ which is not surprising as both
diplomats and scientists have played key roles in the progress achieved to date.”

In her statement, NTI President Joan Rohlfing reiterated that “there is enormous value in the process of sharing knowledge, challenging
assumptions, and building capacity between states with nuclear weapons and those
without them.” Rohlfing also expressed NTI’s continuing commitment to laying
technical and policy groundwork for progress on arms reduction and verification
efforts.  

This week will focus on the progress of IPNDV’s three main
Working Groups, since the third Plenary in June
2016 in Japan. The three groups are:  

• Working Group One: “Monitoring and
  Verification Objectives,” chaired by the UK and the Netherlands
• Working Group Two: “On-Site Inspections,” chaired
  by Australia and Poland
• Working Group Three: “Technical Challenges and
  Solutions,” chaired by Sweden and the United States

From the outset of the partnership, participating members wanted
to ensure that this was a results-driven initiative to develop tools to advance
nuclear disarmament verification. In this first phase of the initiative, since
the inaugural meeting in March 2015, the IPNDV has:

• Hosted four Plenary meetings to bring partners
  together to discuss working papers and reports,
• Initiated a mapping exercise on verification
  capacity in all member states (to be completed in 2017), and
• Published a Monitoring and
  Verification Resource Collection hosted on NTI’s website. 

The Monitoring and Verification Resource Collection is a
first-of-its-kind online and publicly-available library of studies and reports
on key aspects of disarmament verification by governments, national
laboratories, international organizations and independent institutions.

 Related Content

• Opening remarks from Frank Rose, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance for the U.S. Department of State (U.S. Department of State website)
• Opening remarks from Joan Rohlfing, NTI President
• Opening presentation from Andrew Bieniawski, NTI Vice President
• IPNDV project page
• Monitoring and Verification Resource Collection

About IPNDV

The International Partnership is designed to build capacity
among states both with and without nuclear weapons, and develop technical
solutions for monitoring and verification challenges across the nuclear weapons
lifecycle. This initiative sets into motion the key recommendation from NTI’s Innovating
Verification: New Tools & New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks
series, released in July 2014: States should come together now to begin an
international process to assess verification gaps, develop collaborative
technical work streams and contribute to overall global nuclear threat
reduction. 

For more information, visit the U.S. Department of State or the Nuclear Threat Initiative online.