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.
Presentations from the WASH Learning Theme 3 - "Water resource management : finding systemic solutions" session of the All Systems Connect... 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...
A few weeks ago, an interesting email discussion was held on “water point mapping” D-Groupof the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN). Part of the discussion focused on how much it costs to map or monitor all water systems in a country. Various figures were floating around in the discussion. But when... Read more...
Community-based service providers need regular, structured support that goes beyond ad hoc technical assistance. Read more...
As argued several times, post-construction support is one of the keys to sustainability of rural water supplies. Read more...
José Miguel is a circuit rider: a technician responsible for providing technical assistance to a number of water committees in his area around San Vicente in El Salvador. There are around 30 water systems on his circuit which he visits regularly. Read more...
This paper investigates the link between child labour and water and electricity access in five countries - El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Morocco and... Read more...