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.
More emphasis is needed on building and strengthening the work of multi-stakeholder platforms in WASH at the national level. Read more...
Key elements, success factors, partnership processes, conducive national contexts and types of global partnerships, which can support an effective... Read more...
What is currently working well and what needs to be urgently addressed for meaningful reporting on implementation and progress towards SDG 6 targets. Read more...
New report triggers the setup of accountability platforms #Account4SDG6 Read more...
The potential for corruption in water licensing is an important issue. Preventive actions to reduce the risk of corruption are explored. Read more...
No examples of mutual accountability were found in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru and Somalia. Where active, multi-stakeholder platforms in the... Read more...
This Conference Perspective was co-authored by Patrick Moriarty for the OECD – GIZ Conference: Closing the gap for water in line with SDG ambitions: the role of blended finance, 4-5 October 2018, Eschborn, Germany. Read more...
An in-depth inclusive analysis on country-level accountability mechanisms towards Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) on clean water and... Read more...
A podcast about empowering civil society with transparency tools to aid in the fight against lagging WASH budgets. Read more...
An interview with IRC's Head International Programme Catarina Fonseca on increasing water sector financing by improving governance. Read more...
Regular audits, tight monitoring, stakeholder participation and tactful engagement with politicians can lead to more integrity. Read more...
An introduction to ethical fundraising for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) organisations. Read more...
This paper addresses five fundamental questions: (i) what is social accountability; (ii) why is it important; (iii) what are its core features; (iv)... Read more...
Despite investing US$ 486 million in rural water supply in Tanzania between 2007-2014, coverage is stagnating and even declining. Who is to blame? Read more...
This global review explores the strengths and weaknesses of integrity in the water sector. It provides examples of innovative programmes and tools... Read more...