A/HRC/7/38 page 16 or several national preventive mechanisms. No particular type of national mechanism is specified, therefore human rights commissions, ombudsmen, parliamentary commissions or non-governmental organizations could be designated to carry out this function. States parties must ensure that these national bodies function without any interference from the State authorities. 68. The Optional Protocol provides for the setting up of a special fund, to help finance the implementation of the recommendations made by the Subcommittee after a visit to a State party, as well as education programmes of national preventive measures. The special fund, which may be financed through voluntary contributions made by Governments, intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations and other private or public entities, was created in 2007. 69. About 350 participants from a number of countries participated in training activities organized by the Treaties and Council Branch. Staff members of the Branch participated in a number of training activities organized by the Capacity-Building and Field Operations Branch, OHCHR field presences or external partners such as the Organisation internationale de la francophonie and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and national human rights institutions. A memorandum of understanding between the Francophonie and OHCHR, which envisages training courses on treaty body and Human Rights Council activities, was concluded in September 2007, and a training course on the modalities of universal periodic review was held in Rabat on 2 and 3 February 2008. A workshop for parliamentarians on the implementation of treaty body recommendations, co-organized by IPU and OHCHR, was held in Ouagadougou from 30 September to 2 October 2007. Follow-up workshops are envisaged for the Central African Republic, Chad, Mali and Mauritania in 2008. 70. A workshop to encourage engagement with the treaty bodies for representatives of non-governmental organizations, national human rights institutions and the media in Guyana, Indonesia and the Philippines was organized in Geneva, in November 2007, and was preceded by national preparatory workshops in the three countries. Follow-up workshops will be organized in all three countries in 2008. 71. A subregional workshop was organized in November 2007 in Ouagadougou, in cooperation with Plan International, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization, on the implementation of recommendations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. A similar regional workshop on the implementation of recommendations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was held in Bishkek. These workshops create a momentum among a number of national actors to raise the profile of treaty body procedures and in particular the implementation of the recommendations at the national level. 72. More than 6,000 copies of a DVD training tool on the work of the treaty bodies have now been distributed to Governments, non-governmental organizations, OHCHR field presences, United Nations entities and others, and its revision and further development in Arabic, Chinese and Russian has begun. The DVD, which presents the treaty implementation and reporting procedures in a user-friendly and illustrative manner for use by the different civil society actors working at the national level, is used in OHCHR training activities and by United Nations agencies, funds and programmes.