Darren Saywell

Darren Saywell has 20 years of international operational, consulting, research and teaching experience. He specializes in water supply, sanitation and wastewater management within a framework of integrated water management. Darren has worked extensively on projects and programs in Africa and Asia, with primary emphasis on infrastructure and service delivery for low income communities. He is particularly interested in the integrated nature of sustainable service delivery, through project planning, design, implementation and management. He is an experienced sector professional who has published widely and serves in an advisory and governance capacity on several international organizations steering bodies.

Darren is currently Senior Director for the Water, Sanitation and Health Practice at Plan International USA. In this capacity, he coordinates and guides large institutional grants for the Practices, provides technical leadership and advice for the US office, develops strategy in support of resource mobilization and is involved in wider outreach and advocacy for WASH internationally.

From 2005 to 2011 he worked at the International Water Association (IWA) Headquarters, leading the international development program; from 2000 to 2005, he was the Program Manager at the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (part of WHO) in Geneva, during the development and deployment of the WASH Campaign and from 1994-2000, Darren was a Program Manager at the Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC), Loughborough University in the UK.

Darren has acted in a number of advisory positions throughout his career in the WASH sector. He is currently: Vice-Chair of Sanitation and Water For All (SWA) (since 2011-2014); Chair, Board of Directors of Building Partnerships for Development (2013-2014); Associate Editor for the Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development (2013-); Board member of AfricaAhead (2011-) and Member, International Council of American Water Works Association (2013-).