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.
National public development banks are underused and that they have the potential to raise finance for achieving both the SDG 6 and the water-related... Read more...
Keynote for World Health Organization presented at the Twelfth meeting of the Working Group on Water and Health | UNECE. Read more...
Conceptual frameworks and guiding questions that help identify opportunities to strengthen links between water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and... Read more...
A short review of the existing landscape of international financial flows to the water sector, with specific focus on climate finance. Read more...
This guide covers steps required for engaging effectively with decision-makers; increasing the impact beyond programmatic solutions; and influencing... Read more...
Affordable hygiene solutions for households that can be made with locally available materials Read more...
There is a gap between what organisations have formulated in their strategies and programmatic approaches regarding social inclusion and the actual... Read more...
This guidance document sets out a methodology to help mainly middle-and lower-income countries produce water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) accounts... 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...
This study contributes to both literature and practice by identifying the relative importance of factors to consider when designing collaborative... Read more...
This report provides a guide to the practical application of outcome mapping and sustainability scorecards to monitor systems change in WASH... Read more...
Guidelines for European national and subnational policy-makers responsible for sustainable financing of small-scale water and sanitation services,... Read more...
This report presents a theoretical cost-to-serve by Safe Water Enterprises (SWEs) for the estimated 3.8 billion people without safely treated water. Read more...
WaterAid's "approach is relevant to addressing WASH sector issues at global, national and local levels and is an appropriate response to meet the... Read more...
This report reviews the global progress made towards achieving SDG 6. It builds on the latest data available for the 11 SDG 6 global indicators. Read more...
If we want to leave no one behind, we not only need to know who is left behind, but also how far behind they are. 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...
This brief presents the lessons learnt and advocacy messages from this e-discussion for influencing sector discourse on this topic and ensuring that... Read more...