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.
Achieving scale through associations of municipalities Read more...
Based on a review of the costs of 179 water and sanitation projects carried out by FHIS (Honduran Social Investment Fund) over the last five years, we established the unit cost ranges for different intervention models. We also identified the main factors driving the costs of water and sanitation... Read more...
2014 was the year in which we got more insight into how rural water supply systems are doing in Honduras. The situation isn't as bad as often thought. Most water systems are working and water is flowing. But a significant portion face problems with for example water quality. And many water... Read more...
Honduras, just like other Central American countries has adopted SIASAR (the Rural Water and Sanitation Information System) to monitor water and sanitation services in rural areas. IRC supports the development and roll-out of SIASAR in different ways. Read more...
Para Todos, Por Siempre (Everyone, Forever) is an initiative to promote universal access to sustainable water and sanitation services in some 28 municipalities in Honduras. IRC is one of the partners in this initiative. Read more...
IRC and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have been supporting El Salvador, Honduras and Paraguay to develop and implement rural water monitoring systems. Read more...
Various case studies confirm that multiple-use of water is a common practice in rural communities in Honduras. IRC and FHIS developed a guideline to support consideration for these uses in the design and management of rural water supplies. This guideline was applied in a number of communities in... Read more...
Water For People adopted the "Everyone, Forever" approach. IRC carried out a case study to learn lessons on scaling-up rural water and sanitation services. Read more...
Cities in Latin America face a double challenge in environmental sanitation, of both providing access to basic water supply and sanitation for those currently lacking that, and improving the collection and treatment of wastewater and solid waste. Governance is a crucial factor affecting the way in... Read more...
Honduras is well on track towards meeting the MDGs for sanitation as coverage is expanding rapidly. However, these statistics do not reflect the sustainability or the use of such facilities, as many of these are in poor condition or are not used at all. In addition, there is a large negative impact... Read more...