Duncan McNicholl
Honorary Research Associate
Profile
Duncan McNicholl is focused on the sustainability of rural drinking water services globally. A Canadian civil engineer by training, he spent much of the past decade in sub Saharan Africa. Over his career he has gradually shifted from detailed technical work to working with governments and stakeholder networks for institutional systems change in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He now develops innovative funding mechanisms for professional drinking water services. Dr McNicholl is currently the CEO of Uptime Global, a collaborative initiative to design and execute results-based contracts to keep rural drinking water flowing in over a dozen countries. Publications developed in collaboration with the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment have advanced data systems and contract designs that now support drinking water services for millions of people.
Dr McNicholl holds a PhD in Engineering from the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge. He is based in Barcelona, Spain.
Selected publications
- McNicholl, D., Hope, R., Money, A., Lane, A., Armstrong, A., van der Wilk, N., Dupuis, M., Harvey, A., Nyaga, C., Womble, S., Favre, D., Allen, J., Katuva., J., Barbotte, T., Buhungiro, E., Thomson, P., and Koehler, J. (2019). Performance-based funding for reliable rural water services in Africa. Uptime consortium, Working Paper 1.
- McNicholl, D., Hope, R., Money, A., Lane, A., Armstrong, A., Dupuis, M., Harvey, A., Nyaga, C., Womble, S., Allen, J., Katuva., J., Barbotte, T., Lambert, L., Staub, M., Thomson, P., and Koehler, J. (2020). Results-Based Contracts for Rural Water Services. Uptime consortium, Working Paper 2.
- McNicholl, D., Hope, R., Money, A., Lane, A., Armstrong, A., Dupuis, M., Harvey, A., Nyaga, C., Womble, S., Allen, J., Katuva., J., Barbotte, T., Lambert, L., Staub, M., Thomson, P., and Koehler, J. (2021). Delivering Global Rural Water Services through Results-Based Contracts. Uptime consortium, Working Paper 3.
- Nilsson, K., Hope, R., McNicholl, D., Nowicki, S., and Charles, K. 2021. Global prospects to deliver safe drinking water services for 100 million rural people by 2030. REACH working paper 12. Oxford, UK: University of Oxford and RWSN.
- Hope, R., McNicholl, D., Mukherjee, M. and Dickinson, N. (2023). Keeping piped water flowing in rural India. Uptime Global and Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.
- Cost estimates for safe drinking water in schools and healthcare centres in Khulna District, Bangladesh (2023)
