Cate Nimanya is a respected leader and advocate for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) progress in Uganda, having dedicated over 21 years in the sector collaborating with local institutions and governments to advance WASH policies. Cate has extensive work consulting within multidisciplinary teams with a breadth of stakeholders including local and national level government entities across east Africa, large global donors, and organizations like the World Bank, GIZ, Africa Development Bank, the European Commission, among many others. Cate is an effective and persuasive communicator, capable of pushing policy changes and influencing government at the national level. 

Cate joined Water For People in 2012 as Country Director in Uganda, where she oversees all aspects of the country program implementation. She has led the Uganda team’s work in market-based sanitation and has been the driving force behind scaling up innovative water and sanitation technologies and business models that have led to award-winning WASH startups. Cate supported the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to develop Projects related to city-wide sanitation. She has also been involved in developing ISO standards for non-sewered sanitation systems. Cate has also collaborated with the National Water and Sewerage Corporation to improve wastewater and fecal sludge treatment and enhance the city’s sanitation policy and regulatory environment to minimize illegal sludge dumping. Cate has been the team leader for multiple Sanitation as a Business projects for international donor organizations and continues to use her expertise working with both public and private sectors to advance market-based sanitation solutions across the globe.   

She has a Master’s in Business Administration from Herriot Watt University – Edinburgh Business School, a Master of Science degree in Water Resources and Environmental Management from the Institute of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation in the Netherlands, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and Chemistry from Makerere University in Uganda.