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.
Stef Smits' in-depth review of the JMP 2021 data on the progress made in 15 countries and discussing the implications towards 2030. Read more...
Self-supply's contribution to urban and rural water provision world-wide, and the gains of government support. Read more...
This is the first of my 'weekly WASH graphs', exploring the relation between the wealth of a country over time, and its level of access to at least basic water services. Read more...
Policy recommendations are given for five building blocks: institutional capacity, financing, asset management, water resources management, and... Read more...
The Multi-country synthesis report brings together the insights from the 13 Triple-S country studies to identify trends in rural water supply,... Read more...
Informing the Community Water and Sanitation Agency's change journey into the national utility for rural service provision. Read more...
This study confirms the high relevance of payment modalities that reduce the barrier of the upfront payment to get access to a water supply service... Read more...
Presentations from the WASH Learning theme 1 - Delivering Safe WASH Services session of the All Systems Connect International Symposium 2023. Read more...
The SMART market-based approach is contributing to SDG 6 and beyond. Its impact is significant, but localised. Read more...
This paper presents IRC Ghana's experience of acting as a 'hub' to support collective action in the Asutifi North District of Ghana. Read more...
How do multi-stakeholder partnerships differ across thematic areas and how have they evolved over the last decade. Read more...
Drawing from 10 years of experience, Insights into the various perspectives of partners, the different types of partnerships and the partnering... Read more...