Country Director | IRC Ethiopia
Lemessa Mekonta is the Country Director for IRC WASH Ethiopia based in Addis Ababa.
He has diversified and hands on experiences in different aspects of water resources, water supplies, and sanitation working for government, private businesses and NGOs in various capacities ranging from expert to managerial level. Key areas of his experiences include program strategy development, partnership facilitation and coordination with different actors, project management, provision of trainings on water supplies, study and design for rural and urban water supplies, urban water utility management, water quality monitoring, leading action research including rural water supply operation and maintenance with appropriate technology identification and use, and private service providers engagement.
Lemessa is a hydrogeologist by background with over 23 years' experience in water and sanitation sector.
Take a systems approach to capacity building involving government, communities, the private sector, CSOs, educational institutes and women. Read more...
An approach is developed to assess WASH risks in marginal populations that are poorly understood and served through conventional approaches. Read more...
Reflections on how to strengthen the capacity and relationships of actors in the Cambodian sanitation market - and in the wider rural sanitation... Read more...
Early successes point towards the effectiveness of linking collaborative, flexible and adaptive capacity building with performance-based funding in... Read more...
The paper sets out the processes followed to establish WASH Learning Alliances in Ethiopia, examines some of the associated risks and constraints,... Read more...
This paper summarises the different system strengthening initiatives and makes recommendations for joint learning and collaboration. Read more...
This working document provides insights into current practice relating to social inclusion in integrated water resources management (IWRM) programmes... Read more...
Water access and its management are strongly influenced by gendered division of labour, communal power structures, cultural traditions, and daily... Read more...
Institutions are crucial to sustaining behavioural change throughout the entire sanitation value chain: from toilet access to emptying and transport... Read more...
This book/learning tool presents an approach for the comprehensive and integrated management of faecal sludge in urban and peri-urban areas of low-... 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...
An in-depth inclusive analysis on country-level accountability mechanisms towards Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) on clean water and... Read more...
A discussion on ways to use existing systems to improve scale and sustainability of hygiene promotion efforts. Read more...
This study provides new evidence that WASH access and practices are associated with self-reported reproductive tract infection symptoms in rural... 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...
