A/HRC/40/21 5. Subject to availability of funds, the Fund also supports projects seeking to organize training or capacity-building activities for health-care professionals or other service providers, with priority given to applicant organizations that have already received a grant from the Fund. Such projects may take the form of training, workshops, seminars and conferences, peer-to-peer training and staff exchanges that would result in an increased capacity to deliver professional care to victims. They are to be conducted primarily for the benefit of the professional staff of the applicant organization. Grant requests for projects involving investigation, research, studies, publications or other similar activities are not admissible. 6. Outside the regular grant cycle and subject to the availability of funds, the Fund also provides emergency assistance to projects submitted through the emergency intersessional procedure of the Fund, as outlined in the guidelines of the Fund. Emergency grants may be awarded in exceptional circumstances, such as a sudden increase in the number of victims of torture to be assisted owing to a humanitarian crisis, including armed conflict, war or natural disasters. Emergency grants may also be awarded when such crises result in a grave situation that makes it impossible for an organization to continue to provide assistance to beneficiaries (for example, destruction of premises or offices), for the purpose of enabling the organization to resume its activities. B. Monitoring and evaluation of grants 7. As a rule, pre-screening visits to applicant organizations are undertaken before a grant is awarded to a new project proposal. Regular monitoring visits to ongoing projects for which the renewed support of the Fund is being sought are also conducted to assess the implementation and impact of the projects funded. An internal guide on conducting visits to projects that have been funded, or are to be funded, has been developed by the secretariat of the Fund to ensure coherence in the evaluation process. In 2018, a total of 53 projects were visited for technical evaluation by the secretariat of the Fund, OHCHR field presences and members of the Board. III. Financial situation of the Fund 8. The Board, in close coordination with the secretariat of the Fund and the Donors and External Relations Section of OHCHR, seeks to secure a more satisfactory level of contributions from donors, which is needed to respond to the current realities of victims of torture and their family members worldwide. It is estimated that a yearly income of $12 million is necessary to respond adequately to the requests for assistance received by the Fund from rehabilitation centres and other civil society actors worldwide. Over the last three years, the Fund has managed to secure an average yearly income of between $8 and $9 million. 9. The table below shows the contributions and pledges received in 2018 (as of 10 December). At the forty-eighth session of the Board, at which grants were recommended for projects to be implemented in 2019, the Fund had a net total of $8,378,002 available for its activities, mainly for grants to support critical services to victims of torture and their family members, to be implemented in the course of 2019. 3