The International Day of Peace was established by the UN General Assembly in 1981 and is celebrated every year on the 21^st September. Two decades later, in 2001, the UN General Assembly unanimously voted to designate this Day, 21^st September, as a period of non-violence and cease-fire. All nations and people are invited to honor a cessation of hostilities during the Day, and also to commemorate this particular Day through education and public awareness on issues related to peace.

Secretary-General of the UN General Assembly António Guterres in his speech on 15^th May 2019 stated that: “Today peace faces a new danger: the climate emergency, which threatens our security, our livelihoods and our lives. That is why it is the focus of this year’s International Day of Peace”. In another passage he added: “It is possible to achieve our goals, but we need decisions, political will and transformational policies to allow us to still live in peace with our own climate”.

The United Nations Member States adopted the so called 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 because they understood that it would not be possible to build a peaceful world if action and new measures were not taken to achieve economic and social development for all people.