World Environment Day was declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972, during the first Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, Sweden. On that occasion, environmental degradation was recognized as an urgent problem to be solved through collaboration among countries and sustainable development. In addition, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was created to evaluate, develop and strengthen environmental policies at global, regional and national scale.
Since then, World Environment Day has become a global platform to share information, raise awareness and mobilize society in the face of the triple planetary crisis: climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Each year, a different country is the host, and is in charge of organizing the activities and events related to this day. In 2023, the country chosen is Ivory Coast.