A/HRC/7/74 page 4 4. The Board holds its meetings twice a year. The twenty-sixth session took place in May 2007 and the twenty-seventh session in November 2007. The overall objective of the twenty-sixth session was to explore some of the challenges identified in the High Commissioner’s Plan of Action of 2005 in terms of substantive themes or cross-cutting issues which represent entry points from the perspective of country engagement and technical cooperation programming. The twenty-seventh session built on the previous sessions of the Board by a continued examination of various components of the United Nations Human Rights Programme on Technical Cooperation funded by VFTC, and was timed to correspond with the OHCHR annual consultation with heads of field presences. As technical cooperation activities are implemented mostly in the field, it is essential for the Board to be able to interact with field staff that carry out the work, and receive a first-hand account of the ongoing work related to capacity-building and technical cooperation. During the session, the Board focused on technical cooperation and capacity-building activities implemented through human rights advisers placed in United Nations country teams and human rights components of United Nations peace missions. II. TRANSLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS THEMES INTO TECHNICAL COOPERATION PROGRAMME AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS 5. Translating themes such as corruption and poverty, and their possible interlinkage, as well as other cross-cutting themes, into an action agenda for OHCHR remains an ongoing challenge. In this sense, the Board was pleased to note the increased emphasis on enhanced collaboration between the Research and Right to Development Branch (RRDB), the Capacity Building and Field Operations Branch (CBB) and the field presences in relation to poverty reduction. The Board was specifically briefed on the work of OHCHR presences in Guatemala, Liberia and Nepal as a basis for discussing how more focused strategies can make a difference in addressing the root causes of the human rights violations associated with poverty. The value of best practice models was recommended in developing strategies to tackle such a complex phenomenon as poverty. On a more general level, the Board felt that poverty is a difficult concept to define, and that economists would probably look at it differently to human rights experts. More should be done in order to clarify the definition, its linkages, root causes and a combination of these, i.e. discrimination, lack of sound governance, corruption, conflict, marginalization, lack of proper access to political and civil rights, and economic, social and cultural rights. 6. The Board was also briefed on the United Nations conference on anti-corruption measures, good governance and human rights held in Warsaw on 8-9 November 2006. It was organized by OHCHR in cooperation with and hosted by the Government of Poland. Good governance has been part of the focus of OHCHR for some time, however corruption represents a fairly new theme of work for OHCHR. The objective of the conference was to share information on the role of anti-corruption measures in good governance practices, nationally and internationally, for the promotion and protection of human rights, to generate debate and clarify a conceptual basis for corruption. The Board members emphasized the importance of the issue and acknowledged that corruption might be both a cultural and a structural issue. As there are many actors with a mandate to fight corruption, the Board recommended that OHCHR should focus on issues