BT North, Swiss Federal Council Member Ignazio Cassis and Professor Hubert Klumpner, January 2019 (ETHZ U-TT / Michele de Villiers)
Swiss Federal Council member Ignazio Cassis visited the site of the Empower Shack Project in the township of Khayelitsha in South Africa, meeting Prof. Hubert Klumpner on site. Together with the Swiss Ambassador, they spoke at length about the project’s potential to reshape housing policy in post-apartheid South Africa. The Empower Shack project aims to reshape the approach to informal settlement upgrading by offering an innovative and inclusive methodology for the fair distribution of public space, delivery of basic services, and an urbanization scheme that combines housing upgrades with a safer urban environment and new economic and social possibilities. He posted about it later on in his social media account.
