A strong, independent civil society is essential for peaceful, resilient communities. While local organisations are best placed to address their communities’ challenges, they often lack the resources and support to reach their full potential. Cord’s approach to civil society capacity building is rooted in partnership and localisation—trusting and investing in those who understand their contexts best.
In Lao PDR, civil society organizations (CSOs) face challenges such as limited recognition, funding, and capacity for sustainable growth or knowledge sharing. This restricts opportunities for communities to contribute to policy discussions, creating a gap between public needs and government actions.
Cord has developed and refined its organisational and soft skills capacity building program for civil society organisations in Laos. This approach focuses on long-term coaching and mentoring, enabling CSOs to practice applying their skills with personalised support and to address emerging individual challenges – an approach that proven far more effective than stand-alone training. The following details the results of a recent survey of Cord partners, demonstrating the impact of our approach.
More effective and empowering than stand-alone training
Organisations value coaching because it allows them to practise skills, receive context-specific feedback, and build on progress over time. Coaching and mentoring provide ongoing opportunities to return, reflect, and build on progress.
“Cord staff do not just tell you what to do or tell you that you must change something, but rather they help you to think through yourself what is best, or they suggest other alternatives, and then you can change or improve it yourself if you want to.”
BNDA
CSOs contrasted Cord’s approach with other projects that offer one-off training with no follow-up, which they felt led to little progress.
- 77% of organisations reported an overall increase in capacity.
- 76% of CSO staff reported improved capacity after 12–18 months of coaching support.
- 94% of respondents rated coaching and mentoring as highly important.
Long-term relationships for role modelling best practice
The long-term nature of coaching and mentoring enables CSOs to observe and model best practice over time. CSOs learn not only from the content of sessions, but also from how Cord staff coach, mentor, reflect, and use various tools. This role modelling has been an important part of building organisational capacity and shaping how teams think and work.
“Cord have been very clear about the process of reflection and modelling it. As a result, we are better at linking our actions to outcomes and thinking about what happens before and after activities, and what have been doing well.”
AMA
Transferable skills that strengthen sustainability
Coaching and mentoring through the implementation of small grants builds foundational and transferable skills, leading to tangible changes in how organisations operate. These new skills and knowledge can be applied to other projects and contribute to more sustainable organisations overall.
“My thinking has developed a lot – now when I see problems, I want to know more about the underlying causes and why something has happened.” – AMA
Cord’s coaching and mentoring approach deliberately aims to ensure organisational sustainability in core functions and the ability to operate independently, including securing funding through greater confidence in seeking and acquiring new resources. 85% of Cord’s partner organizations in Laos in 2024 have secured funding beyond 2025.
Networking that builds solidarity
In repressed contexts, where visibility is difficult to navigate, strong connections with other organisations are vital but hard to establish. Networking and exchange opportunities through the programme have strengthened sustainability.
“We are more sustainable now because receiving funding does not only support project implementation within the organization but also facilitates a learning process and helps build networks among civil society organizations in Laos.”
PFHA Bokeo
Enhanced confidence and credibility
Coaching and mentoring have helped CSOs gain credibility, confidence, and capability, providing them supported opportunities to engage with donors, local authorities, and communities. With improved confidence and capacity, they can identify entry points and advocate more often, while receiving greater trust, engagement and positive feedback in return.
88% of CSO representatives reported that they felt completely confident or fairly confident that their organization is now recognized as a credible and capable development partner.
“We have applied the lessons learned from coaching to the organisation’s staff, and they have been able to work more closely with the GOL, and now the GOL trust BNDA more and prioritises our work. We feel like a bridge between the GoL and the community.”
BNDA
In some cases, CSOs described how the government had observed their small grant activities and adopted them in their own work.
“The local authorities saw the process that we were using to establish these [village] committees, and they were impressed and took the process to use themselves in nearby communities. This is something to be proud of.”
LDPA CPS
Conclusion: Lasting change through coaching and mentoring
Cord’ civil society capacity building experience has shown that long-term coaching and mentoring goes far beyond skills training. It nurtures reflection, builds confidence, strengthens credibility, and enables organisations to operate sustainably and independently. What has emerged is not only stronger more sustainable CSOs, but also more confident voices able to engage with powerholders – ensuring that citizens’ voices continue to shape governance and accountabilit
Lucy Godfrey, September 2025
