A/HRC/7/50 page 7 with multi-year funding, interaction with donors and United Nations entities, and a strengthened management system were well under way and would be fully implemented by the end of 2008. A. Multi-year funding 17. Recommendation 6 (b) suggested that the Board consider multi-year project approval for three-year periods for projects with a good track record with the Fund. In order to draw on the experience of other institutional donors, the Board met with representatives of the European Commission, USAID (the United States Agency for International Development), the United States Office of Refugee Resettlement, the OAK Foundation and KIOS, the Finnish NGO Foundation for Human Rights. The discussion contributed to the development of relevant criteria and guidelines on multi-year funding, in particular the identification of grantees to be included in a pilot scheme, to be discussed further at the twenty-eighth session of the Board in February 2008. B. Interaction with donors and other United Nations entities 18. Recommendation 7 (d) called on the Board to strengthen its interaction with donors and to be more proactive in fund-raising by approaching decision makers in donor capitals and by better promoting the Fund to actual and potential donors, within the context of an OHCHR global fund-raising strategy. It also called on the Board and secretariat to address the issue of greater synergies with other United Nations entities. 19. The Board held a meeting with Member States during the twenty-seventh session, which was attended by some 20 delegations. The Board provided extensive information on its latest activities, including field visits by members to Argentina, Chile and the Philippines. It also briefed Member States on its stricter guidelines and reporting requirements. The Board provided information on the efforts made over the past three years to address the historical geographic imbalance in grant allocation, in particular the increase in the share of grants allocated to projects based in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe following the outreach work initiated by the secretariat. 20. The Board was pleased to note that the secretariat had met with representatives of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to discuss issues of common concern, such as monitoring and evaluation of projects, co-funding of projects, emergency grants and the dissemination of information about the Fund to UNHCR’s implementing partners. C. Strengthened management system 21. The Board noted with interest the information provided by the secretariat that the 2009 call for applications would be electronically based, and encouraged OHCHR to complete the technical development of the outstanding components of the grant management system, namely the administrative and reporting modules. III. ESTIMATED NEEDS FOR 2009 22. On the basis of the requests received for 2008, it is expected that approximately US$ 14 million will be requested for 2009.