IRC is an international think tank that works with governments, NGOs, entrepreneurs and people around the world to find long-term solutions to the global crisis in water, sanitation and hygiene services.
[2] In December 1968, under an agreement of the World Health Organization and the Government of the Netherlands, the WHO International Reference Center on Community Water Supply was established (abbreviated as IRC).
Apart from the relation with R.I.D, IRC established an advisory board that consisted of representatives of both national and international water supply sector organisations.
[6] In 1970, IRC drafted its first five-year plan with three main objectives: provide knowledge, coordinate research, and stimulate a systematic approach to solve problems in the drinking water supply industry.
Hans Van Damme became the Director of IRC, while Pier Santema became Chair of the newly constituted Governing Board.
[11] In the meantime, the United Nations launched the International Drinking Water Decade, 1981–90, which led to changes in the scope and strategies of IRC.
In 1987, IRC undertook a number of assignments from DGIS, Commission of the European Economic Community, DANIDA, UNDP, World Bank, UNICEF and WHO.
[19] During the 1991 Global Consultation on Safe Water and Sanitation for the 1990s held in New Delhi, "community management" was brought up and soon became one of the guiding principles in IRC's work.
[24] In 1994, IRC delivered its training courses in English, French and Spanish at its headquarter in The Netherlands and other locations such as Kenya, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Colombia and India.
[26] Stepping into the new millennium, IRC presented itself as a "capacity building" organisation to ensure "sustainable and economical" acquisition of WASH services for the world's poorest regions.
After the second external evaluation in 2001, advocacy activities, institutional reforms and people-centred approaches were emphasised in IRC's daily operations.
[30][31] Since the 1990s, IRC had worked with and supported WASH resource centre networks in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Honduras, Nepal and Uganda and documented their contribution to a learning and adaptive sector in 2013.
[10] In 2008, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded IRC two multi-year, multi-country grants[34] for projects on life-cycle costing (WASHCost[35]) and models for sustainable rural water services (Triple-S[36]).
IRC has its headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands with country offices in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Uganda, and staff representatives in Bangladesh, India and Rwanda.