The GEM (Global Earthquake Model) Foundation develops hazard and risk models for the calculation of human and economic losses due to earthquakes. These models are important for a wide range of risk management applications, including standards for the design of buildings and infrastructure, insurance/risk transfer, national risk assessments, as well as public risk awareness and education.

GEM was founded in 2009 with the purpose of improving the global knowledge of earthquake risk and contributing to the reduction of risk worldwide. In 13 years, GEM has become widely known for its global effort to improve the state of practice of earthquake hazard and risk assessment and for its contribution to improving the state of knowledge of earthquake risk.

The GEM (Global Earthquake Model) Foundation develops hazard and risk models for the calculation of human and economic losses due to earthquakes. These models are important for a wide range of risk management applications, including standards for the design of buildings and infrastructure, insurance/risk transfer, national risk assessments, as well as public risk awareness and education.

The Africa Earthquake Hazard and Risk model underpin the African portion of GEM’s global maps released in December 2018. The Africa Model is composed of North Africa, West Africa, Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa regional models, developed in collaboration with various African public and private institutions, national governments, and individual experts using the OpenQuake engine.

GEM achievements would not be possible if we had not first laid cornerstones of earthquake resilience. Our guiding principles define who we are and what we do and ultimately serve as a measure of GEM’s success.

Vulnerability to earthquakes is increasing, yet reliable risk assessment tools and data are out of reach in many areas of the world. There are few global standards that allow us to compare seismic risk, yet recent events have taught us that we need to work together globally to improve our understanding of earthquake behaviour and consequences.

Initiated by the OECD’s Global Science Forum, GEM was formed in 2009 as a non-profit foundation in Pavia, Italy, funded through a public-private sponsorship with the vision to create a world that is resilient to earthquakes. GEM’s mission is to become one of the world’s most complete sources of risk resources and a globally accepted standard for seismic risk assessment, whose products are applied in risk management worldwide.

The OpenQuake Engine is GEM’s state-of-the-art software for seismic hazard and risk assessment at varying scales of resolution, from global to local. It can be used on a cluster, in the cloud or on a laptop. It is open-source, fully transparent and can be used with GEM or user-developed models to carry out scenario-based and probabilistic calculations and produce a great variety of outputs.