UNDP Indonesia signs MoU with eGovernments Foundation to digitalise infectious medical waste management

This partnership stems from close collaboration and engagement with diverse stakeholders with a shared commitment to drive sustainable and efficient waste management practices in the country

UNDP Indonesia and India’s eGov Foundation have signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) to tackle the critical challenge of infectious medical waste management in Indonesia. The collaboration aims to leverage eGov Foundation’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) – DIGIT, to implement a cohesive solution at speed and scale.

This partnership stems from close collaboration and engagement with diverse stakeholders with a shared commitment to drive sustainable and efficient waste management practices in the country. The joint effort aims to bring visibility and accountability to the end-to-end management of infectious medical waste across nearly 13,000 health facilities nationwide in Indonesia.

As part of the partnership, Indonesia will adopt eGov Foundation’s open-source foundational system DIGIT Sanitation platform, specifically designed to accommodate contextualisation and the reuse of components across various waste streams and geographies. This platform approach empowers Indonesia to extend its digitalisation efforts at speed and scale beyond infectious medical waste and encompass other waste streams like faecal sludge, solid waste, and chemical waste. By leveraging the existing digital building blocks of the technology stack, the collaboration seeks to expedite the development of efficient and cost-effective applications.

Commenting on the partnership, Viraj Tyagi, CEO, eGov Foundation, said, “We are pleased to join forces with UNDP Indonesia in addressing the pressing issue of infectious medical waste management. The sanitation sector requires coordination at a national scale, while making space for regional variations in service delivery. Given the nature and scale of the problem, Digital Public Infrastructure(DPIs) like DIGIT is best suited to cater to the needs of various stakeholders and enable a step-change in outcomes.”

Speaking about the collaboration, Siprianus Bate Soro, the Head of Democratic Governance and Poverty Reduction Unit (DGPRU) at UNDP Indonesia, said “Driven by spirit of South-South Cooperation and aiming at rapid adoption of context-driven digital solutions in health care waste management, UNDP Indonesia through the ME-SMILE is excited to collaborate and leverage the expertise of regional and global partners. ME-SMILE application has been rolled out to manage medical waste across 32 hospitals and 1 health centre in Indonesia. We believe that partnering with eGov’s DIGIT sanitation platform, we can explore the interoperability of the ME-SMILE system and further build an end-to-end traceability of all spheres of waste variation, beyond the medical or clinical waste.”

The pressing need for this collaboration is underscored by recent data from Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry Affairs (MOEF), which reported a 30 per cent surge in daily medical waste to 382 tons after the pandemic, compared to pre-pandemic levels of approximately 293 tons. These alarming statistics, gathered from 2,820 hospitals and 9,884 health centers nationwide, emphasise the urgent necessity for comprehensive and nation-wide intervention in infectious medical waste management.

DIGIT is currently leveraged by 6 countries, including 16 national and sub-national governments, across 4 domains, with 100+ partners innovating on the platform, to serve 250 million citizens globally. The DIGIT platform is composed of a microservices-based architecture, which is conducive for scaling services flexibly, and can enable massive deployments at population scale.