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.
Inspirational stories about how ordinary women in India and Kenya have converted the challenges posed by COVID-19 into an opportunity to promote good... Read more...
A guide for implementing WASH in schools initiatives, based on a compilation of best practices in WASH from 15 prize winning schools in Odisha state... Read more...
Despite reduced funding for market systems development (MSD) in sanitation, Water For People (WFP) has been able to grow and expand its approach. Read more...
A fact sheet on Indian national and state level institutions in Odisha and Bihar engaging in particular with rural water supply and resources. Read more...
Policy recommendations are given for five building blocks: institutional capacity, financing, asset management, water resources management, and... Read more...
The Multi-country synthesis report brings together the insights from the 13 Triple-S country studies to identify trends in rural water supply,... Read more...
Recommendations to address the funding challenges of India's flagship rural water and sanitation initiatives. Read more...
Using the Life-Cycle Cost Approach to understand the rural WASH budget. Read more...
How CSOs in Bangladesh, India, Kenya and elsewhere have collaborated to understand funding flows and key moments for budget decision-making, and... Read more...
Water and sanitation interventions should put special focus on strengthening systems of community participation as well as enabling the participation... Read more...
Enhanced capacity building initiatives are needed for Administrators, Technocrats and Elected Representatives, especially at the operational levels... 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...
How can the devolution of planning and budgetary processes help communities raise their issues and plan accordingly. Read more...
A roadmap for tracking and analysing district budgets for water and sanitation programmes in Bihar, India. Read more...
A roadmap for tracking and analysing district budgets for water and sanitation programmes in Odisha, India. Read more...
Tracking the trends for the state budgets of Odisha and Bihar on water and sanitation. Read more...
While household toilets are necessary, they alone are not sufficient for improved sanitation. Read more...
Interventions that ensure women have access to private facilities with water for Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) and that educate women about... Read more...
Since not everyone can be served by sewerage systems in the near future, septage management is one of available options to achieve sanitation for all... Read more...