Every year the ambassadors to the United Nations of the 15 UN Security Council members make a pilgrimage to Africa to see first hand the conflicts on their agenda, most of which are in Africa.
This year, they covered, among others, the conflicts in Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
"When you sit in New York, you don't quite get the texture of individuals and situations," John Sawers, Britain's ambassador to the UN, said in an interview after the trip last month.
The ambassadors rated their trip a qualified success.
In Sudan, they persuaded President Omar al-Bashir's government in Khartoum and its supposed coalition partners, the SPLM of Southern Sudan, to sign a peace agreement to end their bloody battles over the disputed oil-rich town of Abyei.
In Djibouti, they coaxed the Somali Transitional Federal Government - which is being propped up by Ethiopian troops - and its Islamist enemy, the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, to sign a very tentative peace accord.
And in the DRC, they persuaded President Joseph Kabila to prioritise his wars in the east of the country by going after the FDLR - the ex-Rwandese Hutu militias - first, and only later their arch-enemies, the ethnic Tutsi-dominated forces of renegade General Laurent Nkunda, who together are making the lives of civilians a misery.
The dispute over Abyei has seriously jeopardised the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which Khartoum signed with the SPLM in January 2005 to end a 21-year-old civil war between them.
But Sawers was optimistic, saying both sides had an interest in the CPA succeeding: Khartoum to get a cut of the oil in the South and the SPLM to avoid further conflict.
He was less sanguine about Darfur, noting that Khartoum was still stalling the full deployment of Unamid, the UN-African Union peacekeeping force, and that "because of Khartoum's insistence that there should be only African forces in Unamid", it "is having difficulty just looking after itself" let alone doing its job of protecting civilians.
His assessment was proven tragically true within weeks, as seven Unamid peacekeepers were killed and 22 wounded by anonymous forces at Um Hakibah on July 8.
Sawers seemed most pleased with the ambassadors' achievement in persuading Kabila to go after the FDLR before Nkunda's forces.
He said Nkunda was claiming - "with some credibility" - that he was fighting the FDLR to protect ethnic Tutsis like himself from their attacks.
"So we think this is the right way round, because the FDLR are a bigger problem and dealing with them removes one of the main pretexts for fighting of other groups, like Nkunda's."
But the trip also underlined the limitations of what the UN is doing to stop African conflicts.
Within days of the ambassadors' visit, the Somali peace deal broke down, the Abyei deal remains largely unimplemented and both the FDLR and Nkunda's militias continue to rape, kill and plunder civilians.
Since then, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has asked for Bashir to be indicted for masterminding murder and mayhem in Darfur, a move which the South African government and many experts believe will only jeopardise chances for peace.
What does this say about the UN's ability to resolve Africa's conflicts?
Apparently, that without real political will, the attempt is ultimately futile.
In Darfur, the African and Arab nations and their Security Council allies, China and Russia, have shielded Bashir from any real consequences for his stalling of Unamid.
The Western countries, meanwhile, have failed to provide Unamid with the attack helicopters and other equipment which could have prevented the killing at Um Hakibah.
Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad pooh-poohed the ICC move to indict Bashir, saying, "you can't arrest Bashir. Who is going to arrest him?"
The argument cut both ways. Pahad probably meant, don't use force.
Others might say that unless you are prepared to do so, don't throw paper darts at the likes of Bashir.