The data are clear: governments, regulators, industry, international organizations, and NGOs should take action to prevent a nuclear or radiological catastrophe. But what should they do? The 2023 NTI Index has 10 data-driven recommendations.
Nuclear security is regressing in countries and areas with the greatest responsibility for preventing nuclear theft and sabotage—those with nuclear materials and facilities. This destabilizing development occurs as risks are increasing and evolving.
Civil stockpiles of separated plutonium are growing rapidly, with the biggest increases coming from commercial reprocessing.
Global inventories of highly enriched uranium are continuing to gradually decline as global norms against civilian use of HEU solidify.
Amid increasingly volatile risk environments, many governments are not demonstrating the capacity to meet today’s nuclear security challenges.
Countries and areas with weapons-usable nuclear materials and nuclear facilities made no progress in two crucial and mutually reinforcing areas of nuclear security: security culture and insider threat prevention.
Among the 47 countries and areas with nuclear facilities, support for new political and legal commitments and international assurances is faltering.
The number of countries and areas fulfilling their outstanding obligation to effectively protect nuclear materials and facilities has nearly doubled.
Countries in the Global South have made the biggest improvements to their nuclear security conditions, though there is still significant work to be done.
Despite volatile risk environments and growing interest in nuclear energy, support for the IAEA’s role in nuclear security is inconsistent.
Since 2020, countries and areas have made minimal progress on radioactive source security and are not sufficiently adhering to baseline radiological security measures.
