The original version (v2017.1.0) of the Northern Africa model was developed by GEM and is described in Poggi et al. (2020). The model extends from Morocco to Egypt along the Mediterranean coastline. The model consists of a combination of distributed seismicity and faults sources, the former calibrated on occurrence analysis of publicly available earthquake catalogue information, and the latter derived from a thorough evaluation of information from both geological literature and direct analysis of GPS velocity fields.

Since the original version, an update was made to the model by the GEM hazard team, leading to the latest release (v2017.1.1), which was used in the computation of the 2023 Global Earthquake Hazard and Risk Maps. This model extends the minimum magnitude of events for crustal distributed seismicity and updated the source IDs.