Civil Society Capacity Building In mid 2009, the global financial crisis and its manifestation in Ireland has led Concern WW to decide to withdraw from a number of countries, Laos was one of the countries where a final decision was made late 2009 that by end 2010 Concern WW will have phased out with the country programme.
In view of the uniqueness and the impact at national level that this programme has made already withinless than three years, Concern WW and Oxfam Novib have been in intense discussion on keeping this programme after Concern has left and hand over to a new host. After a long series of discussions and consultations with a range of potential hosts, both Concern WW and ON have come to a joint agreement that the best candidate for this would be CORD.

Cord has been anexternal consultant and resource to both Concern WW CS programme as well as to UNDP Laos Governance programme; for the first Cord has been providing expertise on specific capacity development of local CSOs, e.g. designing training for strategic planning with the grassroot; for the second Cord has played a key role in the design of the new Governance programme of UNDP. Noël, the regional director of Cord, is a known and respected figure among INGOs and a bridge builder when looking at and discussing the different civil society initiatives led by different INGOs, and UNDP.

About CORD
Cord is an international NGO with offices in Europe, Africa and Asia. Its core strategic focus in Asia is on building peace through the capacity development of civil society, government and other actors resulting in sustainable development in Asia.  Cord has been working in South <(>&<)> East Asia since 1967 and responded to the Cambodian refugee crisis in 1975,supporting and developing community services in the refugee camps onthe Thai border.
In 1990 Cord supported the Cambodian people intheir repatriation from Thailand where it went on to develop innovative agricultural and integrated development projects. In 1998 it began the localisation of its Cambodia programmes to a national NGO and opened a regional office in Phnom Penh in 2004.

Cord was originally established as a Christian Outreach organization in 1967 by a church based in Leamington Spa, UK, with a concern to help Vietnamese orphans as a result of the Vietnam War. Cords role in humanitarian work grew and developed over the years from a small volunteer run charity to an international organisation working in Asia and Africa. At present Cord works in Burundi, Chad, Uganda, Cambodia and Lao PDR.
Initially Cord worked with unrestricted funding from local supporters, who were individuals, churches and local businesses. As Cord grew its funding base expanded, and Cord partnered with Tearfund for a number of years, receiving funding to undertake its humanitarian activities. As the size and scope of Cords work has evolved, funding has also expanded to include funding from large institutional donors such as the EU, UNHCR, DfID, and BPRM.

As part of its own evolution and growth, Cord has developed its equal opportunities and diversity policy and in line with this policy Cord welcomes staff regardless of gender, faith, sexual orientation, mode of working and race. To this end there are female members on the Board of Trustees, within the Board of Directors, and at senior management level within Chad and Lao. There have been senior female advisors in post in Cambodia, and Uganda. Also, in Burundi, Cambodia and Laos, Cord works closely with female-led rights-based organisations to undertake rights-based programming forwomen and girls.
In the last few years, Cord has focussed more strategically on the capacity development of its partners, and in seeking to focus on the direct peacebuilding components of its work. The capacity development approach has been successfullyestablished in Cambodia. This approach is not project focused, but rather takes a long-term look at supporting partners in all areas of organisational and programme development. This enables deeper and more productive partnerships as the organisations work alongside each otherto develop capacity in organisational planning, strategic planning, financial planning, and rights-based approaches to civil society participation, ultimately leading to greater impacts on civil society.