Former IRC Programme Officer
Learning models were a topic highlight at the second day of IHE-UNESCO's 3-day 5th Delft Symposium on Water Capacity Development. Read more...
Monitoring and evaluation should be used for for learning, change, and ultimately better service delivery, not just accountability or project results. Read more...
In Burkina Faso, connection, flow and sharing of information have a way to go. But they're working on it. Read more...
World Water Day's theme this year is water cooperation, a complex but achievable ambition. IRC's work on Learning Alliances provides some useful pointers on what (and how long) it takes. Read more...
Data collection is easier and cheaper than ever. But gathering sound evidence – and using it for positive and lasting change–takes time and collaborative efforts. Read more...
Last week's IRCnergy week looked at the exciting development of a multi-country sustainability monitoring system for water and sanitation services. Read more...
Learning from our mistakes is critical for improving water and sanitation services. Read more...
Learning and adaptive management are critical elements in a cycle of continuous improvement, which is needed to provide water and sanitation services in an ever-changing environment. Read more...
The challenge is that too often Process Documentation is limited to simple documentation (in all ways) of events. Process Documentation as a method has the potential to achieve much more than that. Indeed Process Documentation offers the potential to identify (in a social or participatory way) the... Read more...
Learning is critical to development, so development practitioners need to reflect on how to nurture learning processes. Read more...
Learning is not optional or just a box to tick off. Knowing what works, what doesn't, for whom and in which contexts is crucial to improve water, sanitation and hygiene interventions for services that last. But using lessons learned requires linking learning to purpose, with a joint vision and... Read more...
Research and learning are set to become important elements in national planning and monitoring of sanitation and water services. That is, at least, the aim of the Research and Learning (R&L) constituency of the Sanitation and Water for All global partnership (SWA). The R&L constituency will... Read more...
IRC’s roots are in knowledge management, capacity building and advocacy. Since our founding in 1968, our focus and ambition have evolved from generating knowledge and making it accessible to the sector, towards playing an active role in the facilitation of learning and systemic change in the... Read more...
The WASH sector is in consensus labelled as a complex system. Interventions need to cope with wicked problems and solutions strive for adaptive management as exit strategy. The bulk of the WASH projects deliver on the short-term. In three year Hygiene projects populations / schools / communities... Read more...
On the 11th of September 2012, IRC debated the pros and cons of sanitation subsidies. These are a common tool used to motivate households to construct toilets. This seems an obvious response: many who lack access to sanitation are extremely poor and the potential public health benefits of universal... Read more...
On the 20th of August the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre organised an in-house debate on the pros and cons of adding a sustainability clause in contracts between donors and implementers in Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programmes. Despite challenges in terms of creating a chain... Read more...
The poor in small towns in Africa can and do benefit from commercialised water services, says SNV in a new practice brief. As long as water companies are socially responsible and they are backed up by pro-poor policies. SNV say they have achieved positive results through their support of small town... Read more...
Our talk about 'sector learning' sometimes obscures the fact that it is people, individually or collectively, who learn and catalyse change. So, it's been inspiring to check in with four young professionals from Bangladesh, Ghana, Guatemala, and Uganda who are visiting IRC for their final de-... Read more...
Could Zimbabwe's once-strong lead in water and sanitation coverage in Southern Africa be recovered through the joint project Zimwash? Read more...
During our workshop last week we explored how Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Resource Centre Networks support learning in their WASH sectors and what change has resulted from their work so far. Read more...