Life-cycle costs approach: costing sustainable services

There is enough money in the world to give everyone safe water and sanitation. The problem is the gap between where capital sits and where it needs to flow. For more than twenty-six years, Catarina Fonseca has worked on closing that gap: building the economic frameworks, financial tools and evidence that help governments and development banks stop treating water as a cost and start treating it as an investment.

She works with finance ministers, development banks and multilateral agencies to identify the changes needed in regulation and institutional set-ups to make essential water services for everyone viable over the long term. Her analyses help governments answer the questions that investors and treasuries always ask first: what will this cost over its whole life, who will pay for it, and will it be sustainable? 

She’s carried out that work across Africa, Asia and Latin America – developing national finance strategies for Ethiopia, Rwanda, Malawi and Cambodia, and advising on investment frameworks for the European Investment Bank, the African Development Bank, the World Bank and the Agence Française de Développement. She also served as independent expert advisor to the Dutch Prime Minister's High-Level Panel on Water Investments in Africa – bringing Riva's analytical depth to the conversations where the largest commitments are made.

Catarina trained as an economist in Lisbon before completing a doctoral degree in Water Sciences at Cranfield University – a combination that explains why finance ministers and district water authorities find her equally credible. She is the author of the Handbook for Finance Ministers on water and sanitation investment, and has written or co-authored more than 100 papers, briefing notes and books that now form the reference library the sector draws on. As a senior associate of Riva and through Pulsing Tide, her own advisory practice, she brings that body of knowledge in-person and online to all corners of the world.

A few highlights

• Author of the Handbook for Finance Ministers – how to make public investment work – the defining reference for governments making the case at the highest political levels
• Independent expert advisor to the Dutch Prime Minister's High-Level Panel on Water Investments in Africa
• National water finance strategies developed for Ethiopia, Rwanda, Malawi and Cambodia – with UNICEF, FCDO and AFD
• WASHCost Director (2008–2013) – a landmark five-year programme costing sustainable water services across four countries, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Advisor to the Water Finance Coalition, bringing together national and international public development banks to improve financing for SDG 6 and the Paris Agreement
• More than 100 published papers, books and briefing notes and developed Riva’s Systems Academy finance course 
• Working languages: Portuguese, English, French and Spanish

The world knows how to deliver essential public services to everyone. What unlocks it is political will, the right systems, and leaders who understand that water and sanitation are not technical problems – they are governance ones. Patrick Moriarty has spent twenty-five years making that case, and building the intellectual tools to back it up. 

His central contribution has been to shift how the sector thinks: from infrastructure to systems, from projects to services, from delivery to sustainability. The concepts of systems thinking, systems strengthening and systems leadership – now embedded in the vocabulary of the field – were developed in significant part through his work at Riva over more than two decades. 

That intellectual agenda has always been matched by political engagement. Through his work in Riva and as chair of Sanitation and Water for All, he helped build the Presidential Compact model – head-of-state commitments to water and sanitation as a national priority – into a movement in more than ten countries. A civil engineer by training with a PhD in Water Resource Management, he brings technical grounding to debates that are fundamentally about politics and human behaviour. He is Irish and lives between Bristol and The Hague. 

A few highlights 

• Secretary General of the Riva Network – leading the transformation of IRC from a Dutch NGO into a federated global network of nationally-led organisations
• An architect of the Presidential Compacts movement – head-of-state commitments to water and sanitation as a national priority, now active in more than ten countries across Africa and Asia 
• Co-founder of the One For All alliance – a unique partnership with Water for People built around a shared strategy, shared results framework (Destination 2030), and a jointly registered UK legal entity; one of the few genuine peer alliances in international development 
• Co-founder of the Agenda for Change – a network of organisations committed to driving systems change in water and sanitation globally 
• Pioneer of the systems strengthening agenda in water and sanitation – co-developing the life-cycle costing approach to sustainable services, and convening the All Systems Connect Symposium to connect water, health, climate and social justice 
• Working languages: English and French 

Born in the leprosy mission ALERT in Ethiopia, where my father served as a doctor, I drank water with excessive levels of fluoride in my younger years — enough to leave my teeth brown and brittle, hard on the outside, soft and fragile within. This daily reminder while brushing my teeth is one of my drivers to change the system. Providing good basic services such as safe water, decent sanitation and good hygiene secures a more dignified life with white smiles and less leprosy. After all, prevention is better than a cure (apologies Dad, for not becoming a doctor!).

As a hydrogeologist, my first job was finding water and drilling boreholes for remote communities in Uganda. Great, rewarding work. However, quite soon I noticed that the boreholes stopped working. Spare parts were unavailable. There was no maintenance budget. No technician. It was never just one thing; it was a whole range of interlinked aspects. That put me on a 25-year journey: from hydrogeologist to systems thinker, from field practitioner to data strategist. I now work with governments, national utilities and district leaders who want to understand how best to provide services that last.

Having been fortunate to have lived in seven, worked in 15+ countries, I thrive on facilitating change across cultures — running a consultancy in Mozambique for a decade, directing WaterAid's technical programme across five South Asian countries, and working as hydrogeology lead with mWater. Now as an associate with Riva, I work at the intersection of water resources, climate change and water and sanitation services. I have shaped climate-resilient strategies with national utilities in Rwanda and Malawi, and drive change through data. I do this with energy, passion and a knack for creating an understanding which lever of the system need to be shifted.

• Senior water and climate leader with 25+ years’ experience of working across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Lived in Mozambique and Uganda, and lead multi-year programmes in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan and Rwanda. 
• Learning, knowledge & evidence champion, supporting external accountability (annual monitoring reports), strengthening national monitoring systems (SINAS Mozambique, Guinea Bissau). Translating programme evidence into guidance (WaterAid’s frameworks on Water quality, Sustainability and Disasters).
• Inclusive and dynamic facilitator, with a strong track record in training (both in-person and virtual training sessions such as masterclasses on Climate Resilience for the Global Centre for Adaptation), and former chair of Riva’s Global and Netherlands Staff Council.
• Dynamic innovator, as managing partner build consultancy company from zero to US$ 800,000 annual turnover; delivered 100+ projects including developing groundbreaking water coverage maps and creating world-first sustainability checks with UNICEF.
• Author or co-author of 20+ publications on Climate (e.g. Climate change, water resources and WASH systems, IRC), Hydrogeology (e.g. “Hydrogeology of Mozambique, BGS) and Life-cycle Costing (e.g. “The Cost of Capital”, IRC)
• Globally oriented and multi-lingual in five languages - English, Dutch, German, Portuguese and Spanish. Additionally strong, nerdy level, digital and analytical skills. MSc in Hydrogeology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam