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.
Elke derde dinsdag in september is het weer spannend: hoe zien de koopkrachtplaatjes eruit? Wat verandert er in de puntenwolken van besteedbaar inkomen? Ondanks alles ziet het koopkrachtplaatje van Minister Buitenlandse Handel en Ontwikkelingssamenwerking, Lilianne Ploumen, er voor 2017 nog goed... Read more...
In this document we capture the inputs that contributed in improving water supply to households and an assessment of cost approximation by the Water... Read more...
This document presents the experiences of the Himmotthan Water Supply and Sanitation initiative in developing community-managed rural water systems... Read more...
This study assesses a project in Uttarakhand during which water schemes and rural sanitations were developed to address the water crisis in this... Read more...
On the 3rd of March 2016, a seminar was held at the Australian High Commission in London to present the main findings from the Community Water Plus project on support to community-managed rural water supplies in India. This video contains these presentations.
Read more...For less than US$12 per person per year a town in Honduras can ensure that everyone's water supply keeps working. Read more...
El Municipio de Chinda alcanzó la cobertura total en los servicios de agua. Sin embargo, el municipio tiene que invertir hasta 11.8 US$/persona en agua cada año para siempre. La buena noticia es que este monto es asequible para el municipio y le permitirá mantener la cobertura total, para siempre... Read more...
Nederland doet goede toezeggingen om drinkwater- en sanitaire voorzieningen aan te leggen. Maar het moet niet voor een dubbeltje op de eerste rang willen zitten. Read more...
The King's speech marks the opening of the Dutch parliamentary year. This year he drew attention to the important position of the Netherlands in the international water sector. The budgets that were presented alongside the speech also reflect this, notably with a 6% increase for the budget for WASH... Read more...
Two years ago, I posted a blog summarizing discussions on whether insuring rural water supply systems is a good idea. But these remained largely theoretical discussions, as there are few examples of such insurances put in place. During field work for the Community Water Plus project in the State of... Read more...
The Community Water Plus project investigates the support that is being provided to community-managed rural water supplies. This is being done for twenty case studies of programmes from across India. Read more...
For community-managed rural water supply to be sustainable, a "plus" is needed: special efforts to empower communities during project implementation, and continued support from government during service delivery. The Community Water Plus project seeks to get a better understanding of the costs of... Read more...
Saraswati Halder, the president of the Durganagar Kanchantala water committee, shows me the committee's bank booklet. It shows only one transaction: 100 Rupees (about 1.50 US$) deposited in 2011, more than 3 years ago. Read more...
The Community Water Plus project assesses twenty cases of support to community managed rural water supplies across India. IRC carried out one of these studies around support to community-managed handpumps in Patharpratima, West Bengal. The case study concludes that an effective mechanism for... 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...
En nuestro sector, Cochabamba (Bolivia) es conocida por la llamada "guerra del agua", una serie de protestas que terminaron la privatización del servicio de agua. Cochabamba merece ser conocida por sus importantes logros en el tema de agua en tiempos de paz, sobre todo a través de su sector público. Read more...
Based on a review of the costs of 179 water and sanitation projects carried out by FHIS (Honduran Social Investment Fund) over the last five years, we established the unit cost ranges for different intervention models. We also identified the main factors driving the costs of water and sanitation... Read more...
En base a una revisión de costos de unos 179 proyectos de agua y saneamiento realizados por el FHIS (Fondo Hondureño de Inversión Social) en los últimos cinco años, estamos estableciendo rangos de costos unitarios de acuerdo a diferentes modelos de intervención. Además identificamos los factores... Read more...