The National Building Review Board (NBRB) has been officially appointed as a 2025 Board Partner of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation, the world’s leading institution in seismic hazard and risk assessment.
NBRB becomes the first and only institution in Sub-Saharan Africa to receive this appointment, positioning Uganda as a regional pioneer in modern, data-driven earthquake risk management.
The appointment follows NBRB’s successful response to GEM’s global call for partners. This evaluation process identified institutions with strong governance, technical competence, and readiness to contribute to a worldwide movement for disaster-risk resilience.
GEM, headquartered in Pavia, Italy, is a non-profit public–private partnership established in 2009 through an initiative of the OECD Global Science Forum.
It leads the world in developing scientific, open-access, and high-quality resources for transparent earthquake risk assessment.
Its mission is to advance global resilience through maintaining the world’s most complete and authoritative earthquake risk resources, supporting global applications of catastrophe and risk-management tools and leading multi-hazard risk assessment and resilience planning
NBRB’s appointment to the GEM Board marks a transformational milestone for Uganda.
Through this partnership, Uganda will gain access to global scientific tools, international knowledge networks, advanced modelling capabilities, and technical support for building a national seismic risk profile.
This collaboration is expected to strengthen national building standards, inform risk-sensitive urban development, safe building and support government decision-making on hazard preparedness across the construction sector and infrastructure resilience.
The partnership will also advance NBRB’s long-term strategy of modernising building-control governance, positioning the institution as a continental leader in seismic and multi-hazard risk assessment.
NBRB looks forward to contributing to GEM’s global agenda and enhancing Uganda’s capacity to build safer, more resilient communities.
About GEM
GEM is a non-profit, scientific, public-private partnership that fosters global collaboration and develops transparent earthquake risk assessment resources for worldwide risk management.
The GEM Foundation is a non-profit, public-private partnership that drives a global collaborative effort to develop scientific and high-quality resources for transparent assessment of earthquake risk and to facilitate their application for risk management around the globe.
Assisted by an initiative of 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 and other natural hazards.