A/HRC/7/69 page 18 72. OHCHR participated in the first meeting of the Commonwealth Forum of NHRIs on 19 November 2007 in Kampala, the conclusions of which stressed the need for all NHRIs in the Commonwealth to respect and function in conformity with the Paris Principles. The Forum also called upon Commonwealth Heads of Government to strengthen NHRIs and adequately support them. IV. ROUND TABLES OF NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTIONS ON THEMATIC ISSUES A. Conflict prevention and prevention of torture Actors for change project 73. The project “Actors for change: Strengthening the capacity of National Human Rights Institutions through distance and regional training” commenced in 2005 with the aim of strengthening the capacity of NHRIs to prevent torture and engage in the prevention of conflict, including early warning, respectively. The project ended in 2007 and will be reviewed in 2008. Funded by the European Union, the project was implemented by OHCHR in partnership with the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC), the Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) and the NGO Fahamu (for a general description of the project, see A/HRC/4/91, paras. 85-88). 74. In collaboration with the UNSSC and Fahamu, a distance training on conflict prevention for NHRIs from Anglophone countries of Africa and the Middle East was organized between 7 May and 15 July 2007. A follow-up workshop was held in Nairobi from 15 to 20 July 2007. Upon successful completion participants received a certificate from the University of Oxford. 75. From 29 May to 2 June 2007, in cooperation with the APT, OHCHR organized a workshop in Rabat on torture prevention for staff of French-speaking NHRIs. The workshop was hosted by the National Human Rights Institution of Morocco. Participants also included staff from NHRIs in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Haiti, Mauritius, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo and Canada. All of them had had successfully completed the first phase of the programme (distance learning course). The Rabat workshop included a visit to a prison. In the third phase of the programme, the participants drafted an action plan on torture prevention for their institution, which they were encouraged to present for actual adoption by their institution at the end of the course. 76. In September 2007, a two-month distance learning exercise started for Spanish-speaking participants from the Americas, monitored by tutors from the APT. From 26 to 30 November 2007, OHCHR held a follow-up workshop in San José, Costa Rica, in collaboration with the APT, which included visits to six prisons in Costa Rica. Twenty-seven participants from 10 NHRIs attended (Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru). Prevention of torture 77. Further to the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and the establishment of the Sub-Committee on Prevention in February 2007, OHCHR launched a survey on the role of NHRIs in torture prevention. NHRIs from Afghanistan, Algeria,