Building a Sustainable Waste Structure

Joi Danielson

System Change and Transformation Specialist

How much do you think rubbish is worth? Watch Joi Danielson as she explains how her team transformed Indonesia’s waste management system.

Sector-Wide Essentials

How much do you think rubbish is worth? Watch Joi Danielson as she explains how her team transformed Indonesia’s waste management system.

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Building a Sustainable Waste Structure

9 mins 45 secs

Key learning objectives:

Understand the relationship between governance and waste
Identify funding methods for public systems
Outline how these lessons can be applied across sectors

Overview:

Indonesia’s waste management system was transformed by tackling governance and funding challenges. Adapting the BLUD model from healthcare created a transparent, accountable framework with dedicated funds, ensuring continuity despite political changes. Financial strategies, like reclassifying waste as a Mandatory Basic Service and bundling fees with household payments, secured sustainable funding. These lessons show that strong governance, transparent financing, and adaptive frameworks can make public services effective, resilient, and scalable across sectors.

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Summary

How can governance reform and adaptive models improve public service systems?

Governance often determines whether public services succeed more than technology or infrastructure. In Indonesia’s waste management, fragmented responsibilities and frequent leadership changes caused progress to stall. By adapting the BLUD model from healthcare, cities created a transparent, accountable system with dedicated funding, reducing misallocation and ensuring continuity despite political cycles. This shows that lasting reform can come from adapting existing models rather than waiting for new laws.

What practical strategies can make public systems financially sustainable?

Financial sustainability requires both legal and operational solutions. Reclassifying waste as a Mandatory Basic Service guarantees budget priority, while bundling waste fees with existing household payments, like electricity or property taxes, improves collection reliability. Combining predictable public funding with user contributions ensures consistent operations and lays the foundation for long-term investment. Engaging stakeholders through workshops and white papers helped make these strategies practical and politically feasible.

How can these lessons be applied across sectors and contexts?

The principles of strong governance, transparent funding, and adaptive frameworks can improve services in water, fisheries, forestry, healthcare, and more. Looking beyond your own sector for solutions and tailoring approaches to local context allows systems to endure leadership changes, scale effectively, and attract investment. Systemic reform grounded in governance and financial realism makes services both effective and sustainable.

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Joi Danielson

Joi Danielson is a transformation leader with over 15 years of experience driving complex, high-stakes system change. She began her career as a consultant at McKinsey, later became a Partner at Systemiq, and now serves as Managing Partner of Vital Ocean. Joi specialises in turning ambitious ideas into practical, lasting outcomes that deliver real impact at scale, while developing the leaders and partnerships needed to sustain that change.

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