CEO

Africa’s water and public services crisis, Juste argues, is not a financing problem. It is an institutional one. Donors can build infrastructure and pay for programmes; what they cannot build is the credibility of the state that has to run them. That gap – between money spent and systems that actually work – is what he has spent twenty years closing.

Before Jane Nabunnya Mulumba joined Riva, she spent a decade helping civil society organisations across Uganda find their voice – learning how to document evidence, engage local government and hold public institutions to account. She brought that understanding with her when she joined, and it shapes everything she does: systems don't transform because of better plans. They transform because the right people are involved and heard.

Stef has worked with governments, NGOs, development banks and consultants across all areas of the international water sector: from analysing the lifetime costs of services and how they can be financed, to developing institutional arrangements and monitoring their effectiveness. He brings that analytical rigour to strategic advisory work, based on more than 25 years of experience across more than 25 countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia – turning research findings into practical decisions and investment strategies.

Lemessa Mekonta began his career in groundwater development for human uses, which involves mapping groundwater occurrence and dynamics – learning to read what lies beneath the surface, and how it behaves. That instinct for going deeper than what is immediately visible has stayed with him. For two and half decades, it has shaped how he reads institutions and systems and discovers what’s holding them back. 

Growing up in rural Ghana, Vida Duti carried water from a stream before school every morning.