The change and challenges that Cambodian NGOs are now facing call for them to respond with fresh thinking in order to both mitigate their challenges and develop new initiatives that respond to the changing circumstances of their target groups. While the needs are, of course, specific to each organisation all need to be constantly adapting. VBNK’s experience of providing social media training to NGOs as part of the CCSS project has shown that there is a very big need for organisations to learn how to manage their social media as a means of communication and promoting their work to external stakeholders. This is particularly true for small organisations in rural areas, where technical expertise of this nature appears to be in very short supply. VBNK will seek ways to continue and expand this work after the completion of the CCSS project.
Another issue, which is closely linked in terms of communications, is advocacy. VBNK does not have, and does not seek to have, any engagement or experience with ‘hard’ advocacy on issues such as human rights, the environment and so on. We have, however, found that many of the partners we work with have little or no expertise in terms of using ‘soft’ advocacy to influence key stakeholders regarding the issues on which they work. Often they are fearful of raising issues with duty bearers or other stakeholders, or they do not know how to put together the information that will help them argue their case. Again, through the work on the CCSS project we have begun to develop some understanding of this need for strategic communications and how to meet it, so it is our intention to develop our materials and expertise further so that we can offer this as a capacity strengthening component of our services.