Programme Officer| Change hub
Vera is a Master of Arts: Journalism and post graduate in Electronic Information Management (Moscow State University and The Robert Gordon University). In the past 15 years, she has gained experiences in working with both traditional and new media, strategic communications, publications, knowledge and information management, communication technologies and children's issues. Prior to joining IRC, she worked for the Bernard van Leer Foundation in Den Haag (the Netherlands) that works to improve opportunities for children up to age 8 who are growing up in socially and economically difficult circumstances; Save the children – Redd Barna(Uganda) and Commercial Television (STV-Uganda).
Vera was appointed organisational trust person in 2016.
Online humanitarian Question&Answer [Q&A] forum KnowledgePoint is modernising in its user experience, data security and use of gaming technology, among other areas, over the next six months. Read more...
An investment of US$ 5 per person per year (the implementers’ cost only, not households or district) in Mozambique saw improvements in latrine use, handwashing and drinking water management Read more...
Our online course is free.... Now what is the cost of failure? The delivery of sustainable and equitable services requires that financial systems are set up to build, operate, repair and renew a water, sanitation or hygiene system through its entire cycle of use. This is the 'life cycle' at the... Read more...
Information scan on WASH unit costs and financial planning and budgeting This study: "Information scan on WASH unit costs and financial planning and budgeting of the Water and Sanitation Sector in Uganda" presents an overview of the income and expenditure flows in the Ugandan rural water and... Read more...
Professor Tanvi Nagpal teaches the Graduate Seminar: Delivering services in developing countries at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. She uses WASHCost to help her students understand the long-term costs associated with sustainable service delivery. Read more...
Boreholes with handpumps continue to play a significant role as a main source and even in communities with piped networks are used as alternatives when piped networks fail. However, they failed to supply a basic level of service to more than 36% of users in any of the research countries. In the... Read more...
A basic level of service is assumed to be achieved when all the following criteria have been realised by a majority of the population in the service area: Quantity: people access a minimum of 20 litres per person per day, Quality: acceptable quality (judged by user perception and country standards... Read more...
WASHCost research strongly suggests that the rural poor are missing out due to failure to finance water services properly, especially recurrent expenditure subsequent to initial hardware provision. Even the relatively small amount of additional money that is required is 6-12 times bigger than the... Read more...
What you do not measure, you do not cost. What you do not cost, you cannot do: reporting systems must change to reflect the real costs of providing services that last. Read more...
Two decades of investment in water supply infrastructure has substantially increased the number of people with access to an improved water service. However, high breakdown levels and lack of support for monitoring, maintenance and repairs renders services unreliable. People, systems and finances... Read more...
Monitoring often ceases three to five years after a contract has been signed. Finding cost data older than three years is a problem even when projects are implemented by governments, donors or the private sector. Where it does exist, data is rarely sufficiently disaggregated to show the difference... Read more...
Rural water services in WASHCost research countries are chronically underfunded, with insufficient resources to provide and sustain a basic level of service that meets national norms and standards. In communities researched by WASHCost, most people did not receive this basic minimum, although they... Read more...
This article provides insight into how the Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) used the life-cycle costs approach while collecting household sanitation and hygiene data to support their study on productive and conventional on-site sanitation in Rwanda. Vera van der Grift (IRC) interviewed... Read more...
Building a latrine is only a first step towards an effective sanitation service. The latrine must be used, kept clean, maintained and replaced at the end of its useful life if families and communities are to benefit. The recurrent costs of keeping the latrine clean and maintained, of emptying the... Read more...
Government of India buys into post-construction support and service delivery issues Interview with Mekala Snehalatha, WASHCost India Read more...
Sustaining sanitation is much more expensive than building latrines. The 20-year cost of sustaining a basic level sanitation service per person in WASHCost research areas is 5-20 times the cost of building the latrine in the first place. Read more...