Marieke is a WASH expert with over 18 years of experience in the sector. She has a special interest in small town WASH, participatory strategic planning processes and evidence-based decision making in WASH.
After graduating as an Irrigation and Water Engineer from Wageningen University, Marieke joined IRC as a Junior Professional Officer (JPO) in 2003. As JPO she was stationed with NGO Forum (Bangladesh) and with TREND Group (Ghana). In 2006, she joined the IRC team in the Netherlands.
Marieke has led and participated in action-research studies in Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe on issues like monitoring sustainable WASH service provision, small town water supply, Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM), multiple-use water services, and cost recovery and financing.
Marieke has experience in working closely with ministries (e.g. the Ministry of Water Resources, Irrigation and electricity in Ethiopia) and government agencies (e.g. Community Water and Sanitation Agency in Ghana) in identifying and addressing sector challenges. She has supported knowledge management and sector learning processes in various contexts and countries (e.g. support to the establishment and development of Learning Alliance Platforms in Ghana and Ethiopia and the Resource Centre Network Ghana).
Marieke is supporting the Accountability and Adaptation team, responsible for monitoring, with special emphasis on monitoring service level and financial indicators. She is also supporting various action research projects, with special focus on monitoring and sustainability issues. She is leading the development of a District WASH Master Planning Facility.
In this video from Sustainable WASH Systems partner IRC WASH, we learn about Learning Alliances and how they are building strong local systems in... Read more...
The two utility models present in Kabarole outperformed the community management model, with the existing national utility demonstrating greater... Read more...
The woreda-wide approach (WWA) is a well-established model for improving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) systems at the local level. Its... Read more...
Recording of a webinar on lessons learned after nearly four years of intensive research on the use of collective action in WASH by the USAID-... Read more...
Harmonizing institutionalized monitoring, national benchmarks, improving the data culture and acting upon monitoring results will be essential in... Read more...
Measuring change over time in the relationships and network structure of learning alliances in four separate Ethiopian locations in USAID's... Read more...
This systematic approach to planning suits the Rwandan context and has helped to mobilise funds, but is less effective in emphasising the... Read more...
A strong enabling environment, which recognizes small communities and their local services, water quality control, post-construction support and the... Read more...
This report summarises the strengths of the decentralised local systems that deliver services in two locations in Ethiopia, describing key actors,... Read more...
Ten years after a community-led total sanitation campaign, intervention households continued to have higher rates of ever owning a latrine but... Read more...
Benchmarks for water services in Mile, Afar and South Ari, SNNPR, and assessments of both the performance of service providers and the performance of... Read more...
This working paper seeks to contribute to a larger analysis on whether community-based management is still a feasible option for service delivery in... Read more...
This review is the first comprehensive evaluation of the External support programs (ESP) literature. It derives a definition of external support... Read more...
Neither rural sustainability checks, nor urban benchmarking frameworks, are entirely suitable for monitoring small town water services. Read more...
Strengthening and clarifying the capacity of local government institutions is critical to the success of SDG6 (Water) and contributes to SDG16 (... Read more...
While writing the end-report of the SMARTerWASH Project, it was good to look back and reflect on the scale of the project and the challenges faced and ahead. Read more...
The global costs of achieving universal basic WASH by the year 2030 are achievable under current overall sector spending but sustained universal... Read more...
Slippage is an expected aspect of behaviour change-oriented sanitation and hygiene interventions, especially those at scale, and not a sign of... Read more...
This guidebook introduces rural and small water and wastewater systems in the United States to ten key areas of effectively managed systems. Read more...