Newsletter «Zürich International»

In December 2019, the UNHCR organized the first Global Refugee Forum in Geneva with more than 3000 participants - besides official government representatives and many NGOs, 70 refugees from 22 different countries were present. On the one hand, the event was a sign of solidarity with both refugees and the countries hosting them. On the other hand, it offered the international community the opportunity to work together on new solutions for the integration of refugees.
In his welcoming address, Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis already mentioned the FOGO housing project developed by the Asylum Organisation of the City of Zurich (AOZ) and the Einfach Wohnen Foundation as an innovative and integration-promoting form of coexistence.
In addition, Ursi Krajnik-Schweizer, departmental secretary in the Department of Social Affairs, presented the schooling of children in the new Bundesasylzentrum (BAZ) in district 5 in a spotlight session on education organised by Switzerland and Sweden. The children from the BAZ are taught in public schools in the neighbourhood. This is unique in Switzerland and brings some form of normality to the everyday life of the children and their families. The input from the Department of Social Affairs was greatly appreciated by the approximately 200 participants in the session, as it was one of the few contributions that illustrated a very concrete project.

In the end of February, a notable delegation from New York visited Zurich for three days in order to gain insights to the local treatment of severely addicted drug users. The visit took place in the context of the current opioid crisis in the United States, where no harm reduction facilities are in place and one person dies every 10 minutes from an opioid overdose. The four-member delegation consisted of members of the District Attorney's Office of the Bronx - the borough with the most deaths - the New York Department of Health and the NYPD.
The visit focused on the 30-year-old successful model of the City of Zurich with its «Kontakt- und Anlaufstelle» (K&A). The delegation was impressed by how Zurich has managed to ensure that illegal substances can be legally consumed in the K&A and at the same time enable cooperation between all parties involved - the city police and social services - despite their different basic missions. «I have to wrap my mind around this», said the Bronx district attorney, who herself has been involved in law enforcement for 30 years.
Zurich's drug policy, with its paradigm shift to view drug addiction as a health problem rather than a crime, convinced the group. However, it remained unclear to what extent the Zurich model could be implemented in New York.

On the evening of February 26, the special commission of the presidential department and the school and sports department, accompanied by Mayor Corine Mauch and representatives of the presidential department and the school and sports department, boarded the night train in Feldkirch to Vienna. Vienna was one of the first cities in Europe to adopt a Smart City Strategy - one important topic for the commission. Apart from the meeting with the Smart City Agency of Vienna, which has published the second version of the strategy, the three days offered a diverse exchange on various topics that are on the political agenda of the special commission and the two departments: The spectrum ranged from citizen participation via participatory budgets on a district level, over cluster schools that include all levels from kindergarten to university, to the promotion of dance and theater. Furthermore, the delegation from Zurich visited the ambitious development area Seestadt Aspern, two urban development areas in the city center (at the Nordbahnhof and behind the main railway station) and the new campus of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. However, the highlight was the reception by Mayor Michael Ludwig and the subsequent lunch with around half of his twelve city councillors.

On 10 and 11 February at the Tøyen Bolig Konferanse 2020, an employee of the office of urban development gave insights to the housing policy of the City of Zurich in various meetings. Other international speakers had been invited from Barcelona, Brighton, Copenhagen and Vienna to present and discuss the respective public housing policies and initiatives to create and maintain affordable housing. The Tøyen Housing Conference and the associated multi-day housing festival were organized by local activists and supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Housing and the City of Oslo. The background of the conference is the real estate boom and the high housing costs for many residents of Norway's capital. The focus of the event was on securing affordable housing also for middle-class districts. In connection with this «third housing sector», the City of Zurich was selected and presented as an example by the organizers due to its active land policy with the granting of building rights and its cooperation with building cooperatives.

Mobility is limited for all of us. This will go on for a while. Accordingly, delegation visits and international exchanges will not be possible in the near future. In order to foster international cooperation anyway, we will use this channel to illustrate innovative initiatives in the fight against the spread of the new corona virus and the resulting challenges in other cities.

Here you will find project overviews by different institutions and organisations:

The Innovation in Politics Institute

Eurocities

Observatory of Public Sector Innovation of the OECD

Here you will find more information on the corona virus and the measures taken by the City of Zurich.