IRC Associate
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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 28 years she has trained, assessed, evaluated and provided technical support to over 50 clients. Since 2019 she has her own company, Pulsing Tide.
The One For All alliance curates a small informal group that explores selected topics on finance in water and sanitation. This blog is the result of the latest discussion. We don’t have a lot of answers, but we do raise many questions. While we keep seeking solutions, we’d love to hear your... Read more...
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...
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...
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...
Financial monitoring will be useful only if governments lead in setting the service-level standards they want to deliver to citizens. Read more...
For our last Finance Connect session before the summer, we turned to a question that features in every conversation about WASH finance: how do you actually move money so that it reaches the people who need water and sanitation — and keeps reaching them after the donor changes priorities? Read more...
The latest session of the Finance Connect Series focused on the evolving landscape of global development finance and its implications for the water and sanitation sector. Read more...
The gap between allocation and spending. Read more...
Technical assistance is the quiet hero behind blended finance. This month, we highlight the seven-year journey of Central America's "Azure Source Capital" in reaching rural populations, a story that shows how it can be done. Read more...
This blog distils the journeys of UDUMA and Sanergy, why they pursued carbon credits, how they financed the first mile and what the timeline looks like. Read more...
By Catarina Fonseca and Dr. Alex Money This month’s Connect Finance gathering focused on water shadow pricing. In this conversation, Dr. Alex Money unpacks why the way we price water today doesn’t line up with the value it creates—and how shadow pricing might help regulators, utilities, and... Read more...
How to design and deliver tariff reforms that are financially sound, socially fair, and politically feasible. Read more...
No financial de-risking without policy de-risking, both are essential for making the water sector viable for investment. However, de-risking always comes at a cost to someone — often taxpayers or philanthropic donors. Read more...
By Catarina Fonseca (IRC), John Garrett (WaterAid) and Phaniso Kalua (Water For People) Decentralisation has long been championed as a pathway to stronger local governance, more responsive water and sanitation services delivery, and improved accountability. But is fiscal decentralisation in the... Read more...
Recently, as One For All alliance, we have been reflecting on effective advocacy and activities that can increase national and local public budgets for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). Its a key part of our strategy to influence these. We explored the most successful strategies and how they... Read more...
Insights from One For All discussions Read more...
Image credit: Theophile Harushyamagara, Water For People Co-authored by Catarina Fonseca, Stef Smits and Lemessa Mekonta The water and sanitation sector faces immense challenges in attracting sustainable financing, particularly in countries where infrastructure expansion is critical. A significant... Read more...
IRC works with associates, international sector specialists who will provide expertise and support...
