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.
Reflections on Finance for water, sanitation and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals Read more...
Less misleading displays of financial data, such as stacked histograms, which separate capital and recurrent expenditure, are preferable to flow... Read more...
The Dutch Water Bank was initially established primarily to finance flood control, but the model is potentially applicable to other aspects of water... Read more...
Only eight African countries provide data on sanitation expenditure. All of them are falling behind on their commitment to spend 0.5% of their Gross... Read more...
Yesterday was World Water Day and we were flooded with high hopes and a celebratory mood. Goals for the sector have been set last year and there are no significant changes on the horizon. With a business as usual approach, are we really going to achieve the SDGs for the water sector? Read more...
Why do we need domestic public finance for urban sanitation and how much of it being spent now. Read more...
Traditionally we've looked to the three Ts to finance water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, with the focus on transfers and tariffs. But this leaves a large financing gap. One which, if we don't solve, will make us miss the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of universal access. Read more...
We have five years to get the right financing mechanisms in place if we want to achieve universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030. Read more...
This Finance Brief summarises the increasing relevance of Domestic Resource Mobilisation (DRM) in supporting the ambitious goals of the Sustainable... Read more...
What is domestic public finance? and why is it essential for providing universal water and sanitation services? Read more...
In this blog, economist and IRC's head of innovation and international programme Catarina Fonseca argues that taxation is crucial in reaching the post-2015 development agenda. "Tax is a prerequisite for governments to become truly democratically accountable to their people," she says. Read more...
In this blog, IRC's head of innovation and international programme Catarina Fonseca discusses the financing of the post-2015 development goals. "A substantial part of funding for development should be sought elsewhere," she argues. Through public finance. Or tax, as we call it. Read more...