As of 2005, the IAEA has safeguards agreements with almost 150 States. The safeguards agreements provide for States to report to the IAEA on their nuclear facilities and holdings of nuclear material, and for IAEA inspectors to verify the correctness and completeness of the States' reports. Under the terms of the agreements, States must establish a State system for accounting and control of nuclear material, known in the technical jargon as an 'SSAC'. The SSAC is the governmental body in the State responsible for implementing the safeguards agreement with the IAEA. The IAEA provides a variety of guidelines to Member States on how SSACs might best be organized and operated. The latest IAEA initiative in this area is the IAEA International SSAC Advisory Service, called 'ISSAS' for short. ISSAS is a type of face-to-face guidance in the form of small teams of experts sent to individual Member States to discuss SSAC issues. The ISSAS teams and their counterparts in the host Member States address problem areas in safeguards implementation, suggest improvements and look for opportunities for greater future cooperation between SSACs and the IAEA Department of Safeguards.
