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.
"I am bored with this work", my friend, WASH, confided. I recommended him not to waste his mid-life crisis. Read more...
The holidays are over, so the Weekly WASH Graphs are back. This week, I will give you a sneak preview of the way we measure the strength of the WASH system at IRC. Read more...
As the World Cup soccer gets on its way, it is time to make predictions and projections who might win the SDG 6 World Cup by 2030. Read more...
As countries, regions and municipalities are making plans to reach universal access to WASH services, a frequently heard question is how much does it actually cost to provide services to everyone in the area? This week's "weekly WASH graph" will provide some magic numbers of the costs of reaching '... 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...
Maybe there should have been a disclaimer on the SDGs. Read more...
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have the target of reaching universal access to water and sanitation by 2030. But can this target realistically be achieved in the most difficult of settings: fragile states? Read more...
Ultimate success in water service delivery is defined by the service level received by households. There can be excellent infrastructure and impeccable administration, but if households don't receive enough water of good enough quality without spending an excessive amount of time collecting it,... Read more...
At the start of the New Year, newspaper and magazines are all busy making predictions of what the year may have in store. Personally, I always enjoy reading The Economist’s “ The World in… ”. In that magazine, predictions are made of how political events may unfold in the year to come, how the... Read more...
Several Dutch water sector organisations have written to Minister Ploumen (Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation) about the Dutch targets for water supply. Read more...
I am waiting for the moment that the newspapers report it is all quiet on the waterfront. 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...
Navigating the danger zone where countries raise enough money to build but not maintain new infrastructure raises a question: Does this zone exist? Read more...
Over the past year, there has been quite a bit of buzz in the WASH sector on the sustainability clause that DGIS seeks to include in its contacts with implementers. The pros and cons of this have been widely debated . A key component of the clauses is to have sustainability checks as a way to... 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...
On April 20, Ministers of Water and Sanitation from around the world will meet with their Ministers of Finance in Washington D.C. as part of the Sanitation and Water (SWA) for All High Level Meeting. There, they will discuss sector goals and progress, and it goes without saying that the recent... Read more...
This week the Joint Monitoring Program of the United Nations announced that the MDG for water supply has been reached, most likely already somewhere in 2010. 5 years ahead of the deadline the percentage of the World’s population without access to safe water supplies has been halved. This is no mean... Read more...
It is the end/start of the year (depending on the moment at which you read this), so time to look at where one stands. The Joint Monitoring Programme of the United Nations has also done that for the state of the nations of the World with respect to drinking water supplies with this* publication... 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...