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.
This report summarizes the findings of action research on how different actors in the Transform WASH project create demand for sanitation products... Read more...
Take a systems approach to capacity building involving government, communities, the private sector, CSOs, educational institutes and women. Read more...
An approach is developed to assess WASH risks in marginal populations that are poorly understood and served through conventional approaches. Read more...
The paper sets out the processes followed to establish WASH Learning Alliances in Ethiopia, examines some of the associated risks and constraints,... Read more...
This paper summarises the different system strengthening initiatives and makes recommendations for joint learning and collaboration. Read more...
A discussion on ways to use existing systems to improve scale and sustainability of hygiene promotion efforts. Read more...
This publication has been produced by IRC as part of its independent monitoring and knowledge management services to the ONEWASH Plus programme. The... Read more...
Data was collected on household income, diarrhoeal disease occurrence, water service provision, and sanitation and hygiene services and practices at... Read more...
The report provides specific recommendations for woreda-level planning of Self-supply acceleration activities, market and business development, and... Read more...
While implementation of the Self-supply approach in Ethiopia is not yet proven, t he expectations placed on this service model are huge. Nevertheless... Read more...
Poster presented at the 2015 UNC water and health conference. Read more...
This case study examines how the Multiple Use water Services (MUS) approach was applied in Kalu to develop joint domestic water supply and irrigation... Read more...
This case study examines how a productive element was added to community water supply in Kamba to increase both water and food security. Read more...
The Millennium Water Alliance Ethiopia Programme (MWA-EP) has experimented with the Multiple Use water Services (or MUS) approach to improve water... Read more...
In Ethiopia, the Self-supply approach for rural water supply is expected to fill gaps left by other service delivery models including community water... Read more...