Lessons from Jayapura: Building Local Capacity through Skills and Field Practice

Implementing food and nutrition programmes requires more than appropriate interventions. The capacity of the people delivering them is also essential to ensuring that every process follows standards and produces reliable data.

In preparing the baseline study for the National Nutrition Pilot Programme in Jayapura, Papua, capacity building involved developing research protocols, testing instruments, training enumerators, and building the skills of supervisors and the qualitative data collection team. This sequence demonstrates that local capacity needs to be developed through a structured, gradual and practice-based process.

Building Competence through Theory and Practice

Capacity building goes beyond delivering materials. Enumerator training used a hybrid format, with online sessions covering the research framework, sampling, research ethics and an introduction to data collection methods. Learning continued through face-to-face training in Jayapura, emphasising practical use of questionnaires and KoboCollect, and anthropometric measurements according to standard procedures.

This approach shows that field competence is built through understanding, practice and evaluation. Enumerators need to understand procedures and apply them consistently when working with respondents in the field.

Testing Instruments Before Use

Several stages of testing also helped strengthen the quality of data collection. Before use in Jayapura, questionnaires were piloted in Bogor to assess the clarity, comprehension and readability of questions. Respondent feedback informed improvements to wording, question flow and response options. Validity and reliability pre-testing was then conducted in Jayapura with four target groups.

Testing also covered inter-rater reliability for anthropometric measurements. The results helped identify differences in enumerators’ skills and adjust field team composition to distribute measurement skills more evenly. This process shows that standardisation involves both establishing rules and ensuring they can be applied consistently.

Strengthening Local Capacity through Collaboration

Capacity building in Jayapura was supported by a clear division of responsibilities. IPB University, as the National CoE, was responsible for developing research protocols and training enumerators, while Universitas Cenderawasih, as the Regional CoE, recruited enumerators and led field data collection in Jayapura. UNICEF provided technical oversight and coordination.

This division of roles shows how local capacity can be strengthened by connecting national methodological support with regional implementation capabilities. Local capacity grows through knowledge transfer and direct involvement in implementation.

Data Quality Is a Shared Responsibility

Capacity building also included supervisors and the qualitative data collection team. Supervisors received training in enumerator supervision, data quality monitoring, protocol compliance, coordination and reporting. A qualitative data collection workshop equipped participants with three main methods: focus group discussions (FGDs), in-depth interviews (IDIs) and structured observation.

Research ethics, confidentiality, interaction with participants and cultural sensitivity in the Papuan context were also part of the learning. This shows that data quality depends on more than enumerators’ skills. It results from a system combining sound instruments, competent personnel, supervision, coordination and research ethics.

Lessons for the Next Stage

Experience in preparing the baseline in Jayapura offers an important lesson: strengthening local capacity requires a continuous process. Competence is built through understanding, practice, testing, evaluation and improvement.

After preparation and data collection, the baseline data will be cleaned, verified and analysed to produce initial indicators for programme monitoring and evaluation. These findings are expected to support evidence-based decision-making in implementing the National Nutrition Pilot Programme.

The Jayapura experience shows that local capacity means more than the ability to carry out activities. It is the ability to follow standardised processes, understand local contexts, maintain quality and use results to inform learning for the next stage.

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