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Cities at risk to earthquakes are expected to directly benefit from the partnership between GEM and 100 Resilient Cities – Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC), which is dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social and economic shocks and stresses of the 21st century. (source: http://www.100resilientcities.org)

The agreement signed in August provides an opportunity for 100RC member cities to understand and address their earthquake risk by working with GEM to incorporate earthquake risk reduction in their resilience strategies and capturing lessons learned to inform other cities.

The Global Earthquake Model (GEM) will partner with motivated cities to build their capacity for long-term risk mitigation planning using GEM’s open source OpenQuake software and GEM’s other tools and services.

“Our partnership with the 100RC is a great opportunity to share GEM’s open tools, data and technical expertise at the city level. Working together with 100RC is an important step toward achieving GEM’s vision of a world that is resilient to earthquakes.” John Schneider, GEM Secretary General.

Cities will receive an ‘Earthquake Risk Thumbnail’, a report providing OpenQuake maps of the city’s or region’s seismic risk comprised of the hazard, and the physical, social and economic risk to the exposed assets and population.

'Thumbnail’ report will propose options for deeper engagement which may include collaboration on data collection, raining local city staff or partners to use GEM’s products and tools, and stakeholder engagement workshops including the Resilience Performance Scorecard (RPS) exercise.

Rebecca Laberenne, Associate Director on the Solution Development and Innovation Team at 100RC, underscores the value of partnering with GEM saying, "We are delighted to have GEM Foundation as a 100RC Platform Partner to provide much needed information and technical advice to cities whose buildings and infrastructure are at risk to earthquakes. GEM's approach to collaboration and technical assistance will be very welcomed by cities to gain an understanding of their risks, as well as to assist in identifying appropriate and cost-effective mitigation and risk reduction measures as part of their resilience strategies."