A/HRC/7/58 page 4 Covenant, the status of treaty body reform, the Committee’s views on resolution 4/7 of the Human Rights Council on the rectification of the legal status of the Committee, and on its efforts to revise its working methods. 7. The joint expert group on the monitoring of the right to education, which comprises two members of the Committee and two members of the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, held its sixth and seventh meetings on 9 May and 7 December 2007, respectively. The joint expert group discussed, inter alia, the essential components of free and compulsory primary education, including core obligations and quality education. It was recalled that basic education was a broader concept than primary education and that, in order to avoid confusion, the expert group should limit its discussion to primary education. 8. On 14 May, the Committee held a private teleconference with the Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Open-ended Working Group on an optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, who informed the Committee about the progress achieved and the activities undertaken since the adoption of resolution 1/3 by the Human Rights Council. 9. On 21 November, members of the Committee held informal consultations with Government representatives serving on the Trade Policy Review Board and the Committee on Trade and Development of the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as with staff members of OHCHR and WTO, to discuss potential areas of interaction between the trade and human rights reviews respectively undertaken by WTO and the United Nations system. 10. On 22 November, the Committee and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations convened for their fifth informal meeting, with a view to strengthening cooperation. The meeting helped to guide the elaboration of the general comment on article 9 of the Covenant (the right to social security), which was adopted the following day. The informal meeting focused on the themes of (a) freedom of association and the complementarities of ILO and United Nations standards in this area; and (b) the draft optional protocol to the Covenant and the consequent need for close collaboration and coordination between the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights if and when the optional protocol came into force. 11. During the inter-session period, the Committee continued to contribute to a number of initiatives aimed at promoting, clarifying or improving the monitoring of economic, social and cultural rights. From 28 to 30 March 2007, the Committee organized the first regional workshop on follow-up to the concluding observations of the Committee in Bishkek, pursuant to resolution 4/1 of the Council and with the financial support of the Russian Federation. The workshop enabled national actors in Central Asian States to consider the implications of the concluding observations of the Committee for their countries. It brought together representatives of Governments, national human rights institutions (where one existed), non-governmental organizations, and agencies and programmes of the United Nations. 12. Members of the Committee also contributed to the day of general discussion of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on 21 September 2007, on article 4 of the Convention