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.
Ensuring long-term services on a large scale. Read more...
Users want to know what they are entitled to receive: the quality, quantity, reliability and accessibility of their water supply. Read more...
Triple-S think piece examining the rates of change in coverage of different groups (rural and urban) and in different services (water and sanitation). Read more...
Water For People adopted an approach of Everyone, Forever. This video presents the perspectives of the local stakeholders involved in that approach in the municipality of Chinda, Honduras. It is based on a study that IRC did of Water For People's approach there.
Read more...A special issue of ' Water Alternatives' journal looks at trends in water services in rural areas. Read more...
The government of Sagar island, together with Water For People, and other partners, aim to achieve full coverage of sanitation and water supply in... 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...
Service delivery models describe the practical implementation of water service provision as part of a service delivery approach 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...
This Triple-S Working Paper presents the Triple-S Principles Framework and the key concepts behind it. It provides a description of how the Principle... 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...
Water For People adopted the "Everyone, Forever" approach. Read the case study to learn lessons on scaling-up rural water and sanitation services. 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...
The lack of clearly delineated roles can undermine sustainable services at scale. 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...
Behavioural change needs to happen at both user level and service provider level if water services are to remain sustainable. The Triple-S project promoted the need for rigorous learning processes for all water stakeholders in order to ensure services that last.
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