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.
Increasing repair and maintenance funds leads to higher borehole functionality and water access rates in the drought-prone regions of Turkana, Kenya... Read more...
National public development banks are underused and that they have the potential to raise finance for achieving both the SDG 6 and the water-related... Read more...
Keynote for World Health Organization presented at the Twelfth meeting of the Working Group on Water and Health | UNECE. Read more...
A short review of the existing landscape of international financial flows to the water sector, with specific focus on climate finance. Read more...
This guidance document sets out a methodology to help mainly middle-and lower-income countries produce water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) accounts... Read more...
In this podcast (6 mins) WASH finance expert Sophie Trémolet explains how can we make blended finance work towards addressing the finance gap in the... Read more...
This study confirms the high relevance of payment modalities that reduce the barrier of the upfront payment to get access to a water supply service... Read more...
Presentations from the CONNECT Finance thematic track of the All Systems Connect International Symposium 2023. Read more...
Policy recommendations for the Indian union government and ministries for water, health, education, women and child development, and local government. Read more...
Policy recommendations for the Indian state government of Odisha and its departments for drinking water and local government, health, education, and... Read more...
Annual budget allocations for water and sanitation in Odisha and at gram panchayat level in Chhatrapur block of Ganjam district. Read more...
Recommendations to address the funding challenges of India's flagship rural water and sanitation initiatives. Read more...
Recommandations pour les actionnaires des BPDs: les gouvernements des États. Read more...
Recommendations for the shareholders of national PDBs: states and governments. Read more...
Using the Life-Cycle Cost Approach to understand the rural WASH budget. Read more...
How CSOs in Bangladesh, India, Kenya and elsewhere have collaborated to understand funding flows and key moments for budget decision-making, and... Read more...
Guidelines for European national and subnational policy-makers responsible for sustainable financing of small-scale water and sanitation services,... Read more...