Clarissa Brocklehurst

Clarissa Brocklehurst started her career working on the water and sanitation needs of aboriginal communities in Canada and the US after studying Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto where she received both her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees.  She then managed water and sanitation projects in Togo and Sri Lanka before becoming the Bangladesh Country Representative for WaterAid, a major British charity, in 1996.  In that capacity she worked on a mix of rural and urban programs, building what was, at the time, WaterAid’s largest program in urban slums.  In 1999, Clarissa became the Regional Urban Specialist for the World Bank Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) at its office for South Asia in New Delhi, India, working on the particular challenges of ensuring that urban water sector reform benefits the poor.  She returned to Canada in 2001 to take up consulting, working for a variety of clients including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and WaterAid.

In April 2007, Clarissa was appointed Chief of UNICEF’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Section in New York.  In this role she led the team that advises and provides technical support to the more than 100 country programs that make up UNICEF’s WASH program worldwide.  Clarissa also played a role in development of strategy and advocacy for the global water supply and sanitation sector; in particular, she was very involved in the establishment of the Sanitation and Water for All partnership, and in running the Joint Monitoring Program, which is mandated by the UN to monitor progress against the water and sanitation MDG targets.

In 2011 Clarissa returned to her consulting practice in Canada.  She is a member of the Board of Trustees of WaterAid, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the JMP.