A/HRC/7/29 page 11 46. Several mandate-holders highlighted the crucial role that civil society actors play in the effective functioning of the special procedures system. The need to ensure that special procedures have a broad network of partners, including United Nations country teams and OHCHR country and regional presences, was highlighted. 47. An important aspect of the work of civil society was its support in disseminating the work of special procedures, including through translation of their reports in local languages to facilitate follow-up to recommendations. 48. There was a need to include grass-roots national non-governmental organizations in the consultations carried out by mandate-holders with civil society actors. The need to make the website more accessible through translation into other official languages than English was highlighted. 49. It was pointed out that it would be of assistance if reports could be disseminated to relevant national civil society actors after country visits. Country visits by special procedures represented an opportunity to create platforms for dialogue between civil society actors and the Governments concerned and also an opportunity for the United Nations system on the ground to familiarize national actors with the special procedures system. Contacts and exchanges of information between non-governmental organizations working on similar issues in different countries and regions should also be further facilitated. 50. The education and awareness-raising role that special procedures play vis-à-vis civil society was mentioned. It was stressed that not only country visit reports but also relevant thematic reports should be disseminated at the country level. The need to ensure a broad interpretation of the definition of civil society actors to include groups such as the press and sports associations was also indicated. 51. Questions were raised on existing avenues for non-governmental organizations to receive funding from OHCHR. The secretariat informed participants on the Acting Community Together project. To a varying extent, the Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture, the Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations and the Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery all provided grants to allow civil society actors to participate in relevant thematic sessions and events. VI. PROTECTION GAPS AND OVERLAPS 52. Philip Alston and Manfred Nowak presented a preliminary non-paper on behalf of the Coordination Committee, drafted after consultations with all mandate-holders. The non-paper was prepared in the light of the institution-building process and the review of mandates exercise and was not aimed at setting out a new comprehensive architecture of mandates but rather analysing the existing system. 53. In the draft non-paper, the authors examined whether there were any issues that reflected significant violations of human rights and were not already either the subject of a particular thematic or sectoral mandate, or effectively covered in practice by one of those mandates. The authors stressed that concerns about overlap or duplication of issues among different mandates were overstated. There was inevitably an adjustment mechanism which helped to ensure that the