Jeske Verhoeven

In the global effort to provide sustainable and universal water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services, one truth is clear: infrastructure alone is not enough. Functioning and resilient services are delivered by systems that are made up of capable people, responsive institutions, and effective collaboration between all actors involved. 

Jeske Verhoeven joined IRC in 2008 with a BA in Journalism and MA in International Development Studies. She assisted the WASHCost project, among others, with developing trainings and curriculum on life-cycle costing and process documentation, for which she developed her first online course. In this, she found her main area of interest; capacity development.

In 2019, Jeske Verhoeven started the online learning platform the Systems Academy, which she still leads. The platform is anchored in Riva’s approach to capacity strengthening - that strengthening systems requires strengthening the people and institutions that make them work. This is not a onetime investment or initiative, but needs to be considered over time, and across the institutions. Sustainable change arises when capacity development enhances both performance (i.e. what a system does) and resilience (i.e. its ability to adapt and endure).

This means that our approach to capacity development always includes a mix of methods that we adapt to the context, including; 

• Customised learning – adapting global best practices and tools to local realities 
• Blended learning models – combining structured (online) training with self-paced and guided online courses, webinars, workshops and practical application 
• On-the-job coaching – reinforcing skills through mentorship and hands-on support. 
• Peer learning and exchange – facilitating dialogue across individuals, organisations, institutions, districts or countries, both face-to-face and online 
• Institutional strengthening – supporting institutions to embed, scale and cascade learning and assess their capacities based on the functioning of the institution and the identification of gaps

A few highlights

• 18 years in development; six years leading the Systems Academy; launched in September 2019, this online learning platform has over 20.000 users from over 148 countries
• Co-author of online courses and training curriculum on systems strengthening
• Co-author of research publications on various topics including support arrangements and costs for rural water service providers, capacity development, podcasting and online learning
• Custom made training for specific regions, countries and organisations 
• Training curriculum development on topics ranging from systems leadership, climate resilience, to finance, nutrition, health systems and the Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus
• Co-facilitation of blended learning, webinars and trainings on finance, systems strengthening, sanitation and climate resilience with 20 to 250 participants 
• Project management