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.
One of the nicest water-related customs in Honduras is the breaking of the pot. When a village gets connected to a water system, part of the inauguration ceremony consists of an old woman from the village symbolically throwing a clay water-pot on the ground, so that it breaks. She will never need... Read more...
Triple-S has successfully promoted sustainability and the Service Delivery Approach (SDA) at the international level and in target countries. The... Read more...
Honduras es uno de los países estrella que alcanzó los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio (ODM) de agua y saneamiento unos años antes de su tiempo. La pregunta ahora es si el país está bien preparado para los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS), que se están aprobando ahora. Read more...
The domain of inquiry of this review is the rural water sector in low- and middle-income countries. Read more...
Providing solutions for the safe and commercially viable collection and composting of faecal sludge for use in agriculture and horticulture in... Read more...
A state of the art of strengthening monitoring water supply and sanitation in developing countries. Google scholar 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...
Water For People, IRC and Aguaconsult have developed a set of tools to support the financial planning to reach Everyone Forever with water services. These tools were validated in the municipalities of Tiraque and Araní in Bolivia. Read more...
An introduction to ten building blocks to support sustainable service delivery. Read more...
Learning and knowledge management supported at national and decentralised levels to enable the sector to adapt based on experience. Read more...
Water For People, IRC y Aguaconsult han desarrollado un conjunto de herramientas para analizar los costos de llegar a una cobertura universal en agua, que dure para siempre, que a su vez sirva para identificar posibles brechas financieras. Las herramientas fueron validadas en los municipios de... Read more...
Uttam Majundar is een succesvolle Jalabandu, een mecanicien die handpompen repareert, in Digambarpur, West-Bengal, India. Maar hij dreigt slachtoffer te worden van zijn eigen succes. Stef Smits, programma officer van IRC, schetst een dag uit het leven van Uttam en laat zien waarom te goed je werk... Read more...
Background note prepared for the IRC event on the 4th of March 2015. Read more...
2014 was the year in which we got more insight into how rural water supply systems are doing in Honduras. The situation isn't as bad as often thought. Most water systems are working and water is flowing. But a significant portion face problems with for example water quality. And many water... Read more...