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.
This paper presents findings on water and sanitation service levels from 16 small and medium towns in four regions of Ethiopia. Read more...
Top-down efforts are ineffective for connecting low-income urban populations to centralised water, sanitation or electricity services. Bottom up,... Read more...
Decision-support tool to aid the identification of potentially appropriate drinking water methods for arsenic- and salt-mitigation in Bangladesh... Read more...
This paper describes how the ASTRA tool can help identify potentially appropriate technical solutions fro the delivery of arsenic and saline-free... Read more...
What is the best technical solution to deal with arsenic-polluted and saline water in Bangladesh? When is it better to treat the water or to choose... Read more...
In Chennai, India, stakeholders support the establishment of an independent state groundwater authority to secure sustainable water supply. Read more...
Sustainable groundwater use is more likely in Indian villages if farmers, other village community members and NGOs work together with researchers and... Read more...
Multiple-use services can be scaled up, through a stronger focus on accountability towards users' needs Read more...
This book analyses and explains the success factors of MUS, using a framework of accountability for public service delivery, and examines why there... Read more...
A study on whether water sources classified as "improved" are indeed safe triggered debate on the level of effort that needs to go into water quality monitoring and into measures to improve water quality Read more...
The most effective approach to adaptation is to strengthen governance of the WASH sector, for example by adopting principles of adaptive management... 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...
Self supply is an approach that can improve the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of water services. Read more...
Alternative service provider options refer to models such as self-supply and public-private partnerships, that are a departure from the conventional model of community-based management that has tended to dominate rural water supplies. Read more...
This report on Self-supply aims to help fill some of the gaps in our knowledge about the existing performance of traditional wells, especially water... Read more...