Kristof Bostoen

Kristof has been working for IRC since 2008. Initially as a consultant, later part time while lecturing at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Currently he is employed full time by IRC and only lectures on distance learning courses for the University of London.

After becoming an engineer in medical electronics in Antwerp (Belgium) he joined the medical non-governmental organisation Médecins Sans Frontières in 1989, working in countries such as Rwanda, Turkey, Iraq, Burundi, Congo, Angola, the Philippines, Liberia, Sudan and former Yugoslavia. He started doing general logistics but quickly developed an interest in water and sanitation. After five years in the field and two years at the head office in Brussels he took the opportunity to study 'Water and Waste Engineering' (WEDC) at Loughborough University and obtained an MSc in 1997. The MSc research looked at the public health threat of 'Land filling Healthcare Waste' discovering the discrepancies between perceived and real risks.

After his studies he drilled boreholes and commissioned water treatment plants in Southern Sudan and provided water and waste facilities for refugees in Albania and Kosovo. For ICRC he rehabilitated boreholes in Somalia and developed anti-cholera activities and set up a epidemiological surveillance system in major towns including the capital Mogadishu. At the time he was surprised about the discrepancies between the reported benefits of programmes towards the donors and those achieved in the field. There were also so many unknowns about how to focus resources to maximise the benefits towards the target population that he decided to study, and did his PhD while working as a researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Before joining the Environmental Health Group of Prof. Cairncross at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, he did consultancies for MSF-E, MSF-B, SC-UK, Oxfam-UK, UNDP, Habitat, UNEP, IFRC and ICRC amongst others.