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.
The two utility models present in Kabarole outperformed the community management model, with the existing national utility demonstrating greater... Read more...
Policy recommendations are given for five building blocks: institutional capacity, financing, asset management, water resources management, and... Read more...
Recommendations to address the funding challenges of India's flagship rural water and sanitation initiatives. 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...
Early findings from the application of outcome mapping and system-wide assessments within the USAID-funded Sustainable WASH Systems Learning... 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...
Successful sanitation approaches were characterized by their adaptation to the local context, community participation, built-in mechanisms that... 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...
Ten years after a community-led total sanitation campaign, intervention households continued to have higher rates of ever owning a latrine but... 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...
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...
This case study highlights how an organisation can identify potential threats to institutional sustainability common in an extremely low resource... Read more...
This document describes how the principles and practice of the global movement, Agenda for Change (A4C), can be applied at district level, following... Read more...
Presentation based on the findings from two World Bank publications. Read more...
This guide shows leaders and development practitioners how to navigate this complexity and manage their initiatives/organisations successfully... Read more...
Podcast featuring Patrick Moriarty and Stef Smits, who discuss taking on a systems approach in the WASH sector – including real-life examples from... Read more...
'End of ownership' models in the water and sanitation sector are generally found in places with a limited public sector and unregulated markets. 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...