Catarina Fonseca is trained as an economist and has a doctoral degree in water sciences. She has over twenty-three years of experience in development cooperation and non-profits of which twenty in the water and sanitation sector. She has pioneered sector development on the understanding of life-cycle costs and financing. She was the WASHCost Director (2008-2013), a large-scale initiative to identify the long-term costs of sustaining rural and peri-urban water and sanitation services. She has been part of the IRC management team and managed the International and Innovation programme from 2012-2019.
Catarina Fonseca was the Director of Watershed, a 5-year strategic programme that run from 2016-2020 to strengthen the ability of citizens to hold governments and service providers accountable for the services they deliver. She is an Associate of IRC and is available for consultancy assignments. Over the past 20 years she has trained, assessed, evaluated and provided technical support to over 50 clients. Since 2019 she has her own company, Pulsing Tide.
This report, commissioned by UNHCR, presents a methodology to cost water services in post-emergency situations as well as in first emergency... Read more...
Understanding the difference between charity, venture philanthropy and impact investing is key to getting businesses and programmes funded Read more...
Governments need to create an accountable and enabling environment for non-state entities that ensures they provide affordable, demand-driven... Read more...
This book provides readers with a glimpse into the realities of managing large-scale initiatives with ambitious goals. It reveals that through... Read more...
Universal coverage of water, sanitation and hygiene looks set to be included in the Sustainable Development Goals. What finally ends up in these goals will determine the agenda for the WASH sector for decades to come. Read more...
Even the extreme poor can and do pay for improved water and sanitation services, especially if they can save time collecting water. For sanitation,... Read more...
Background paper for the Symposium on Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation: Strengthening capacity for local governance Read more...
Pre-read to the 2014 WASH Sustainability Forum providing three short overviews of sustainability tools for water, sanitation, and hygiene. Read more...
Analysis of large scale surveys and life-cycle costs data requires skilled staff, time and sophisticated software. WASH Info carries out analysis in... Read more...
What happens when people cannot pay for water and sanitation services? Mostly, we hear about women and girls in low income countries and how they access polluted water from ponds, rivers or hand dug wells. This week, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (USA) made it to international news for... Read more...