Country Director | IRC Ethiopia
Lemessa Mekonta is the Country Director for IRC WASH Ethiopia based in Addis Ababa.
He has diversified and hands on experiences in different aspects of water resources, water supplies, and sanitation working for government, private businesses and NGOs in various capacities ranging from expert to managerial level. Key areas of his experiences include program strategy development, partnership facilitation and coordination with different actors, project management, provision of trainings on water supplies, study and design for rural and urban water supplies, urban water utility management, water quality monitoring, leading action research including rural water supply operation and maintenance with appropriate technology identification and use, and private service providers engagement.
Lemessa is a hydrogeologist by background with over 23 years' experience in water and sanitation sector.
Reflections from district level WASH SDG master planning in Negelle Arsi and Shashamane, Ethiopia Read more...
The theme of World Water Day 2016 - Water and Jobs - focused on how enough and the right quality of water can change workers' lives and livelihoods, and even transform societies and economies. Linked to this theme, the National Self Supply Task Force in collaboration with IRC, MWA, JICA, Water for... Read more...
Bringing people together in a joint regional forum in Amhara, Ethiopia Read more...
Whether you live in the countryside or city in Ethiopia, your water may be unsafe to drink. Household water treatment is one way we can improve its quality. Read more...
From 7-9 September 2015, IRC, the Millennium Water Alliance- Ethiopia Program (MWA-EP) and the Ministry of Water Irrigation and Energy (MoWIE) facilitated a national learning retreat on Self-supply. Participants came together in Butajira: a small town in Meskan in the Southern Nations,... Read more...
32 professionals and teams from five woredas in Amhara recently came together for a training workshop on Self-supply acceleration. What did we learn? Read more...
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is one of the well-known international NGOs in Ethiopia, so it was a pleasure for me to see so many CRS advisers in Addis Ababa for their WASH Community of Practice meeting on 23rd May. Staff participated from across East Africa. I was there to share my experiences on... Read more...