Welcome to Riva

Welcome to Riva - a network of independent, locally led organisations working together, across the world, to help nation builders put water and sanitation at the heart of the systems a country depends on. 

We are Riva’s leadership team combining Member CEOs, our Deputy and Secretary General and Directors of our regional and global programmes.

We are not new to this: we are 58 years in the making, previously as IRCWASH. What is new is our shape and ambition — a federation where leadership sits where it belongs, close to the people and governments driving change, and connected globally so that no one has to solve these problems alone. 

The same people, the same commitment; greater reach, and a stronger ambition for transformational impact on the development of public services using our expertise in water and sanitation.

Over the coming weeks our communications, notably through our new website and social media, will keep returning to a central question: how can we help? Whether you are a minister, a civil servant, a utility or regulator, a business, a civic leader, expert or a citizen, we know how hard lasting change can be — and we know it turns on the things nobody sees: political commitment that actually holds, services built to outlast any single project, finance that reaches beyond projects, and the connections between water, sanitation, health, climate and economic life. Seeing those connections, and plotting a path through them, is what we call systems leadership — and it is at the heart of everything we do.

We are here to listen, to advise, to research, to convene, and to stand alongside you for the long term. Welcome to Riva. Let’s talk. 

— Jane Nabunnya (CEO, Riva Uganda) · Lemessa Mekonta (CEO, Riva Ethiopia) · Juste Nansi (CEO, Riva Sahel; Director, Riva Africa) · Vida Duti (CEO, Riva Ghana; Deputy Secretary General) · Stef Smits (CEO, Riva Netherlands) · Patrick Moriarty (Secretary General, Riva Network) Ruchika Shiva (Director, Global and Regional Programme Hubs)