Expanding Success of Public-Private Partnership to Address Childhood Stunting in Indonesia 

Our 2023 Social Entrepreneurship for the Nation (WiNNER) competition finalist, WeCare.id, is expanding its successful public-private partnership by signing an MOU to provide alternative financing for the district government of Manggarai Barat, East Nusa Tenggara province in Indonesia. WeCare.id is a social enterprise that provides accessible and affordable healthcare services through their crowdfunding platform. Their enterprise was a direct response to the chronic and recurrent child malnutrition affecting communities across Indonesia. 

In October 2023,  WeCare.id signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the district government of Sintang, West Kalimantan, to collaborate in addressing childhood stunting. This successful collaboration in Sintang prompted our USAID ERAT (Effective, Efficient and Strong Governance) program to recommend WeCare.id to the district government of Manggarai Barat, East Nusa Tenggara province. In 2022, the district government identified interventions to address its very high stunting rate of 39% and its poverty rate of 17%, but the district budget was unable to fully finance those initiatives to address these challenges.

Now under the terms of the MOU, the District Health Office is responsible for identifying and verifying specific stunting reduction interventions that will be financed by WeCare.id. Meanwhile, the District Employment Office will utilize WeCare.id’s financing to expand coverage of the Employment Insurance premium subsidy to protect informal workers in case of work-related accidents and deaths.  

With support from USAID ERAT, the provincial government of East Nusa Tenggara identified 3,000 informal workers in Manggarai Barat, including people with disabilities, women-led households, and workers in high-risk sectors. The district government increased its budget for premium subsidies more than threefold to $12,841 in 2023-2024. Still, alone the government can only cover the annual premiums for a third of the people identified; WeCare.id financing is expected to cover the remaining 2,000 workers 

While the government has been promoting public-private partnerships in the case of large infrastructure investments, these partnerships demonstrate the value and effectiveness of public-private partnerships at the district levels to address social development issues. Working at the local level, these partnerships are able to address the root causes of childhood stunting. The initiatives in Sintang and Manggarai Barat districts are building trust between government and private enterprises that can be replicated and scaled up in other regions and to address other critical issues.