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 article demonstrates the effectiveness of facilitation of a learning alliance by a non-governmental organization providing funding and expert... Read more...
The two utility models present in Kabarole outperformed the community management model, with the existing national utility demonstrating greater... Read more...
Dans le cadre de la décentralisation, la commune de Torodi a pour mission dans le domaine de l'AEPA la création et la gestion des infrastructures... Read more...
District WASH master plan of Makalondi, Niger Read more...
This report provides a guide to the practical application of outcome mapping and sustainability scorecards to monitor systems change in WASH... Read more...
This systematic approach to planning suits the Rwandan context and has helped to mobilise funds, but is less effective in emphasising the... Read more...
The motto of the Sustainable Development Goals is "leaving no one behind". For water and sanitation this implies that all people – including those families who live in the last house on top of the mountain - must have access to water and sanitation services. Water For People and IRC in Honduras... Read more...
This tool provides guidance on a systematic approach to experimenting with innovative solutions to water problems. 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...
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...
Anyone who works in the water sector cannot have missed the consultations and debates on the post-2015 goals for water and sanitation. Read more...
Two weeks ago, the “management and support” working group of the RWSN had its first meeting. This meeting focused specifically on management models and support arrangements for piped water supply in small towns. Read more...
I have argued at times for the need for post-construction support to rural water supply, and so have various publications from IRC and others over the past decade. However, there has been critique to this, stating that there is little evidence that shows that such help helps improving rural water... Read more...
The latest trend in Dutch politics is to label anything of parties of another political colour as hobbyism. Read more...