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.
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...
Watershed empowering citizens was a unique programme focused on advocacy and influencing. After 5 years, what have we learned? Read more...
A critical reflection on the use of planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning (PMEL) tools. Read more...
Key finding of this briefing note: Overall, citizens holding governments to account is dependent on effective civil society and media shaping the... Read more...
Smarter emergency measures against COVID-19 needed to ensure lasting solutions in service provision. Read more...
Presentations from the WASH Learning Theme 3 - "Water resource management : finding systemic solutions" session of the All Systems Connect... Read more...
Presentations from the CONNECT Finance thematic track of the All Systems Connect International Symposium 2023. Read more...
How CSOs in Bangladesh, India, Kenya and elsewhere have collaborated to understand funding flows and key moments for budget decision-making, and... Read more...
Recommendations to the Dutch government on how to reduce the potential adverse social and environmental impacts of the National Capital Integrated... 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...
Ensure national ownership is at the centre and maximise existing local government structures. 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...