The corners of the United Nations

However, no one wants to miss out on attending the General Assembly in September because it is an excellent platform for launching ideas, proposals and defending positions that would not normally have much impact.

But after the speeches at that green podium, what is truly valuable and worthwhile is the opportunity to maintain discreet and informal contacts with numerous leaders from around the world, without the official obligations of agendas, minutes and media appearances.

The most significant thing is that these meetings can be held in relative secrecy between politicians from different countries who may be at odds with each other. They have an opportunity to confront ideas, proposals and mediations that in many cases have served to unblock entrenched conflicts or prevent an escalation or, in the worst case, increase problems, but by clarifying the real reasons and interests.

The corridors, hidden rooms, cafeteria... in short, there are numerous corners within the United Nations building on First Avenue in New York for coffee meetings that in other circumstances would be very difficult to organise, justify and, above all, explain their results, whether they have been a success or a failure, and which will become known at the appropriate time.

Politicians who have experienced this type of meeting explain that personal contact and face-to-face dialogue have served to improve relations with leaders who were initially very reluctant due to their public statements and radical or implausible positions. They also confess to the opposite effect. The one who turns out to be an unpresentable and insufferable shark in person.

This experience of many years serves to explain one of the many values of an organisation such as the United Nations which, if you ask me, is now more necessary than ever, even though it receives much criticism, makes questionable decisions or fails to make them, and harbours too many bureaucrats.

It should be noted that the UN is what its member countries want it to be, bearing in mind that it is an organisation that emerged after the Second World War and has been awaiting reform for years.

There is talk of anecdotes involving Trump, but that is just the foam on the beer. What is really relevant is the beer itself, what is worked on, negotiated, planned, helped, dissuaded, prevented and attempted to be healed when wounds, too many in many parts of the world, are opened and cost the lives of many human beings.