The UN General Assembly may be one of the most unwieldy events on the diplomatic calendar, with non-stop speeches by 193 leaders and hundreds more side events, all in a few blocks along New York's East River.
But for Maria Fernanda Espinosa, the newly-elected president of the General Assembly who watches over the gathering, the format is spot-on.
The United Nations is "the only place in the world where heads of state and government can come and say what they think and have bilateral contacts with far-away countries," said Espinosa, 54, a poet with a doctorate in philosophy who has held a number of senior ministerial posts in Ecuador.
"Europe can speak with Pacific islands, the Pacific islands with Latin America, and the Caribbean with Africa and Asia," she said.
For a full week from 9 am to 9 pm, world leaders take their turns at the General Assembly rostrum. Some draw attention -- such as New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who came with her three-month-old baby -- but often the speeches are ignored by all but junior delegates and each nation's media.
And this year, in a rarity, the General Assembly saw laughter -- when US President Donald Trump began boasting in superlative terms of his domestic record, as is his wont in front of domestic audiences.