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.
Increasing repair and maintenance funds leads to higher borehole functionality and water access rates in the drought-prone regions of Turkana, Kenya... Read more...
Stef Smits' in-depth review of the JMP 2021 data on the progress made in 15 countries and discussing the implications towards 2030. Read more...
The two utility models present in Kabarole outperformed the community management model, with the existing national utility demonstrating greater... Read more...
This is the first of my 'weekly WASH graphs', exploring the relation between the wealth of a country over time, and its level of access to at least basic water services. Read more...
Policy recommendations are given for five building blocks: institutional capacity, financing, asset management, water resources management, and... Read more...
Strengthening the monitoring of water services to improve water service delivery. Read more...
In Ethiopia, prioritising access to groundwater, supported by responsive and proactive operation and maintenance, increases rural water supply... Read more...
The status of WASH at national and municipal levels and how IRC and a coalition of partners are working together with Government to inspire and... 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...
Approximately one in four handpumps in sub-Saharan Africa are non-functional at any point in time, which in 2015 was roughly equivalent to 175,000... Read more...
As the World Cup soccer gets on its way, it is time to make predictions and projections who might win the SDG 6 World Cup by 2030. Read more...
Many countries are developing or reviewing their water sector monitoring systems to see whether they are SDG-proof. A recurring question in this is the extent to which these should use household-level data of JMP-defined access to limited, basic or safely managed water. We argue that caution should... Read more...
Presentation based on the findings from two World Bank publications. Read more...
Based on 20 detailed successful case studies from across India, this book outlines future rural water supply approaches for all lower-income... Read more...
This paper presents findings on water and sanitation service levels from 16 small and medium towns in four regions of Ethiopia. Read more...
Ultimate success in water service delivery is defined by the service level received by households. There can be excellent infrastructure and impeccable administration, but if households don't receive enough water of good enough quality without spending an excessive amount of time collecting it,... Read more...
Communal wealth is one of the most important factors affecting rural water services, and household connections are the only technology which can... Read more...
Everyone in Digambarpur has access to a basic level of water service thanks to support model that allows w ater committees to outsource technical... Read more...
Triple-S Uganda conducted an analysis of the Water User Committees Service Delivery Model in eight selected districts with the aim of understanding... Read more...