Early in the development of the IRDP, the need was recognized for creation of a variety of documents specifically attuned to the needs of small countries with limited regulatory resources. These documents were envisioned to provide three types of guidance to regulators in countries with emerging nuclear power programs: overview information, regulatory infrastructure guidance and regulatory program documentation. Some of these documents were meant to be studied by participating countries and used in guiding development of their programs. Others were meant to be adopted in the form of country-specific guides and incorporated directly into the regulatory program.

Many of these documents have been completed in generic form. In some cases, participating countries have adapted these documents for their own use with the assistance of IRDP. Many additional documents are either under development or envisioned for development in the future. The discussion below describes the three types of documents which the program produces gives numerous examples of documents which have been completed to date.