Stef Smits is a senior programme officer and Co-director of IRC's Growth Hub. He has 20 years of professional experience in water supply and sanitation in over 25 countries in Europe, Latin America, Southern Africa, and South Asia. His main thematic expertise includes: institutional models for water supply, sustainability and enabling environment, monitoring, costing and financing of services and integrated water resources management.
Stef has led numerous projects on these topics, and published about them. In addition, he has ample management expertise: from consultancy assignments to multi-annual programmes, and units within an organisation. He has worked for a range of clients including bilateral donors, development banks, research funders and NGOs. Stef holds an MSc degree in Irrigation and Water Engineering from Wageningen University, The Netherlands.
This tool provides guidance on a systematic approach to experimenting with innovative solutions to water problems. Read more...
Podcast featuring Patrick Moriarty and Stef Smits, who discuss taking on a systems approach in the WASH sector – including real-life examples from... Read more...
Maybe there should have been a disclaimer on the SDGs. Read more...
'End of ownership' models in the water and sanitation sector are generally found in places with a limited public sector and unregulated markets. Read more...
IRC and Water For People have developed a roadmap to achieve universal piped water coverage in 30 focus districts in Honduras as well as having plans... Read more...
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have the target of reaching universal access to water and sanitation by 2030. But can this target realistically be achieved in the most difficult of settings: fragile states? Read more...
Ultimate success in water service delivery is defined by the service level received by households. There can be excellent infrastructure and impeccable administration, but if households don't receive enough water of good enough quality without spending an excessive amount of time collecting it,... Read more...
For Ghana the main recommendations were to revisit the Service Delivery Approach (SDA) , introduce more robust monitoring, increase sector funding... Read more...
Triple-S has successfully promoted sustainability and the Service Delivery Approach (SDA) at the international level and in target countries. The... Read more...
The domain of inquiry of this review is the rural water sector in low- and middle-income countries. Read more...
An introduction to ten building blocks to support sustainable service delivery. Read more...
Learning and knowledge management supported at national and decentralised levels to enable the sector to adapt based on experience. Read more...
At the start of the New Year, newspaper and magazines are all busy making predictions of what the year may have in store. Personally, I always enjoy reading The Economist’s “ The World in… ”. In that magazine, predictions are made of how political events may unfold in the year to come, how the... Read more...
Several Dutch water sector organisations have written to Minister Ploumen (Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation) about the Dutch targets for water supply. Read more...
I am waiting for the moment that the newspapers report it is all quiet on the waterfront. Read more...
Para Todos, Por Siempre (Everyone, Forever) is an initiative to promote universal access to sustainable water and sanitation services in some 28 municipalities in Honduras. IRC is one of the partners in this initiative. Read more...
Pre-read to the 2014 WASH Sustainability Forum providing three short overviews of sustainability tools for water, sanitation, and hygiene. Read more...
We understand sustainability in terms of whether water continues to flow over time, and whether people maintain access to an adequate and convenient toilet. Read more...
Last week it was World Water Day 2014 , with the topic of "water and energy". I see obvious issues coming by on the water-energy nexus (which by the way is one of those development sector buzz words that I start disliking more every day. I hope the next buzz word is a bit more, uh, sparkling), such... Read more...