Opinions and voices for change
Navigate the blogs from our experts, water, sanitation and hygiene sector colleagues and guests. Narrow down your search by using the filters.
USAID's Global Water Coordinator Chris Holmes welcomes the recent passage of the Water for the World act, while confirming his agency's commitment to sustainable service delivery Read more...
Driving, catalysing, supporting, acting as a backbone to foster sector change is what IRC is all about. Read more...
Nothing less than universal and equitable access to water and sanitation for all by 2030 is what the world wants. Some 50 Dutch water and development specialists came to The Hague on March 4th, 2015, to discuss what it will take to make this goal a reality. Read more...
It's hard to predict what impact investments and innovations in the water sector will have on citizens' access to services. Understanding underlying mechanisms and potential bottlenecks of change can help decide how and where to invest resources, while also giving a more realistic picture of the... Read more...
Unlike droughts, floods and oil spills, non-functioning water and sanitation systems seldom make the headlines, even though water crises top the list of global risks. Read more...
2015 is the year that the Millennium Development Goals make way for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). An important role in both development agendas is reserved for water, sanitation and hygiene issues that leave much to be desired in many countries. OneWorld dived into the world of... Read more...
At the start of the New Year, newspaper and magazines are all busy making predictions of what the year may have in store. Personally, I always enjoy reading The Economist’s “ The World in… ”. In that magazine, predictions are made of how political events may unfold in the year to come, how the... Read more...
Participants from IRC, the BRAC WASH programme and Biosol Energy BVAs have been on a study trip to China as part of ongoing action research on the productive use of faecal sludge. This one-week study tour was supervised by the Centre for Sustainable Environmental Sanitation (CSES) at the University... Read more...
Next year the Millennium Development Goals will make way for their successors: the Sustainable Development Goals. What does this mean for global development? What should the new targets include? Organisations working in water, sanitation and hygiene closely follow the making of the new agenda. Read more...
Several Dutch water sector organisations have written to Minister Ploumen (Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation) about the Dutch targets for water supply. Read more...
Not only does the accessibility of water play an important role in improving the well-being of Burkina Faso's women, but women too, play a crucial role in guaranteeing the sustainability of water services in the country. But what is the main challenge that women in Burkina Faso face when it comes... Read more...
I am waiting for the moment that the newspapers report it is all quiet on the waterfront. Read more...
In this blog, IRC's head of innovation and international programme Catarina Fonseca discusses the financing of the post-2015 development goals. "A substantial part of funding for development should be sought elsewhere," she argues. Through public finance. Or tax, as we call it. Read more...
Over the years, IRC's focus has evolved from supporting community management, to working on a 'whole system' approach to sector change. In this second blog in our series on a learning and adaptive sector we chart IRC's evolution and explore the central role of collective learning for delivering... Read more...
Understanding the difference between charity, venture philanthropy and impact investing is key to getting businesses and programmes funded Read more...
In this blog Patrick Moriarty reflects on Stockholm World Water Week 2014. There is good progress in language (and some tools) around the role of government in delivering services, he argues. But it's still an uphill struggle on who pays for what. Read more...
The capacity to continuously learn and adapt is critical for dealing with complex challenges and future uncertainties. In this first blog in a series about 'a learning and adaptive sector', we discuss why learning is central to achieving water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services for life. Read more...
In the third of three blog posts, CEO of IRC Patrick Moriarty explains why “government leadership” is critical to tackle inequality, poverty and to create sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene services – and why we need to stop believing in fairy tales be they about self-supporting communities... Read more...
Opiniebijdrage van Stef Smits in Vice Versa Read more...
"The 2030 Sustainable Development Goal of true WASH service delivery is entirely within our reach," argues CEO of IRC Patrick Moriarty in this second of three blog posts. "We're ready. What's to stop us? Two big scary words: Government and Money." Read more...