The “Safe Building Alliance” (SBA) is a non governmental organization that was established in 2006 (Memo 273/2006) and aims to spread knowledge and awareness of safety standards for different types of buildings.  

Main goals for the SBA:

1. Raise public awareness about safety standards in various types of buildings.
2. Raising awareness about the dangers of building accidents and resulting casualties.
3. Cooperation with experts and different governmental and non governmental organizations in order to improve and develop knowledge and awareness about buildings safety.

SBA signed a number of agreements with many organizations specialized in public safety namely with the YASA group for public safety.  It has also recently joined YASA Group for Public Safety.

Cooperation with LASIP
In Lebanon, there are a numerous sport buildings and constructions that are not recent and lack maintenance. SBA highlights that this situation threatens the athletes and hence it started cooperating with the Lebanese association for sports injuries “LASIP” to improve the public safety level of sport buildings.

SBA also confirms its willingness to cooperate with the Ministry of Youth and Sport, and with all sport clubs to improve public safety in sport buildings and hence to provide safer places for the athletes.

Cooperation with LFPC
The Scientific Research Foundation – SRF reported a large number of fires in commercial and inhabited buildings over the past years. Therefore, SBA initiated cooperation with the Lebanese Fire Prevention Committee (LFPC) who has many years of experience and has also done a great step in 2008 by equipping more than 200 public schools in southern and northern Lebanon with more than 1,000 fire extinguishers and early warning devices. More details can be found on www.lfpc.org

Cooperation with the Lebanese Civil Defense
SBA sees it crucial to cooperate with the Lebanese Civil Defense who are doing their best in rescuing people who are at risk of fire in buildings. Both SBA and LFPC will cooperate with the civil defense to do every possible effort to secure the necessary infrastructure for the work of the civil defense when they perform the rescue.

Cooperation with LASSA
SBA sees the Lebanese Association for School Safety Awareness – LASSA as one of the most promising associations concerned about school safety awareness, especially school transportation and accidents within the schools.
SBA confirms that all educational buildings should be designed in such a way that prevents injuries to the students and provides the safest environment for them to allow them to acquire their learning properly.More details can be found on www.lassanet.org

Cooperation with local groups
Since its early days, SBA contacted the responsible officials to ensure that the civil engineers are committed towards public safety of newly constructed buildings in compliance with decree 14293 that deals with the availability of Public Safety Measures in public buildings, constructions, lifts accessories and preventive measures against fires and earthquakes.
With this regard we ask the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation to strictly adhere to the aforementioned decree when issuing any construction license.  And in case they do not want to adhere to it, they should abolish that decree for the sake of respect of the law in the Lebanese republic.

The public safety decree 14293/2005 states:
The decree identifies the organizing conditions regarding public safety and fire prevention in all buildings, educational establishments, hospitals, factories and commercial centers. They are as follows:

1. Impose international standards on the quality of construction materials and how competent they resist fire.
2. Mandatory emergency stair designs and construction of protected exits for emergency building evacuation.
3. Identification of spontaneous warning and extinguish systems distributed all over the building.
4. Make all the civil defense necessities available.

Cooperation with international organizations
SBA has joined many international organizations interested in improving awareness of public building safety.

SBA recommendations

1. Application of international standards concerning the construction material to guarantee the strength of buildings.
    
2. Assuring that the civil engineers abide by decree 14293 and its conditions before granting them the construction license.
    
3. Continuous maintenance of buildings and their accessories.
    
4. Strict mandatory technical check up of buildings and structures public safety requirements.
    
5. Making sure that technical inspectors are not involved in any sort of activities related to designing, implementing works or offering consultations of any structure.
    
6. Making sure of attaching the construction license request with an insurance policy to secure refunding any damage resulting from bad design, weak construction or lack of construction material.