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.
National public development banks are underused and that they have the potential to raise finance for achieving both the SDG 6 and the water-related... Read more...
Anyone, of any gender, at any age, can leak urine or faeces. What would you do if it happened to you? What can you do to support people living with... Read more...
Watershed empowering citizens was a unique programme focused on advocacy and influencing. After 5 years, what have we learned? Read more...
A short review of the existing landscape of international financial flows to the water sector, with specific focus on climate finance. Read more...
A call to action for ministers of finance, with inspirational case studies and forward-looking sector perspectives. It is part of an initiative by... Read more...
This guide covers steps required for engaging effectively with decision-makers; increasing the impact beyond programmatic solutions; and influencing... Read more...
Smarter emergency measures against COVID-19 needed to ensure lasting solutions in service provision. Read more...
This working paper unpacks what is meant by the enabling environment for finance in WASH and presents real examples of how these bottlenecks are... Read more...
New report triggers the setup of accountability platforms #Account4SDG6 Read more...
Financial monitoring will be useful only if governments lead in setting the service-level standards they want to deliver to citizens. Read more...
Despite the concern for improving information management in water and sanitation institutions in developing countries, most of the demand for... Read more...
This Research Review provides an overview of subsidy targeting strategies and the conditions under which they have proven successful or not, drawing... Read more...
Highlighting financial and technical collaborative successes. Read more...
Guidelines for European national and subnational policy-makers responsible for sustainable financing of small-scale water and sanitation services,... Read more...
What is needed to eliminate inequalities and achieve universal access to sanitation? Read more...
This presentation provides a simplified definition and framework for blended finance, together with emerging themes and statistics for the water,... Read more...
How do you make development programmes inclusive and what challenges do you face. Read more...
An interview with IRC's Head International Programme Catarina Fonseca on increasing water sector financing by improving governance. Read more...
Ministers of Finance should increase funding for the enabling environment, make more use of micro and blended finance, and address the inequities in... Read more...