Erich Baumann

Mr. Baumann is an internationally recognized technical expert in the field of rural water supply. He possesses 25 years of experience in design, planning, monitoring, evaluation and implementation of projects/ programmes in RWS. His expertise includes the entire range of rural water supply issues, such as: institution building, contract management, supply chains and procurement procedures, operation and maintenance systems and community management, cost recovery concepts, private sector participation, financial issues, and capacity building and training. He has worked with multilateral agencies, bilateral agencies, community organizations and non-governmental organizations in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Liberia, Kenya, Mozambique, Sudan, Malawi, South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Honduras, Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Vietnam.

Since more than twelve years, Mr. Baumann is heading the secretariat of RWSN (Rural Water Supply Network, former HTN). He has been instrumental in establishing the acclaimed reputation of the network in supply chains, low cost drilling, self-supply household solutions, handpump research and development, capacity building in local production, technology transfer, quality control and quality assurance, and training. He has initiated the preparation and publication of the RWSN handpump standard specifications such as Afridev, India MKII/III, Walimi, etc. These specifications cover the full range of public domain handpumps, and are used as the basis for national and international standardization.

Mr. Baumann is a planner, developer and organizer of technical training courses in rural water supply and sanitation.

As the management representative ISO 9000 for SKAT, he has introduced the Total Quality Management System in the firm. He has extensive practice in setting up Quality Control and Quality Assurance systems as well as being accomplished in the use of database management.