The first-ever Global Strategy for Drowning Prevention is currently being developed by the GADP. It responds to an urgent need to unite a diverse multisectoral and multistakeholder audience through shared goals and a coordinated effort to meet the drowning challenge in all its forms. It will offer a global-to-local approach, with affected people and populations at the centre of all decisions. This strategy will aim to:

• strengthen coordination and alignment of global, regional, national and local-level drowning prevention efforts, as called for in UN and WHA resolutions;
• develop a shared purpose, goals and response, and set targets;
• design and deliver effective interventions that address priority risk factors for drowning;
• help countries identify multisectoral partners for effective collaboration that addresses the broad scope of drowning risks;
• promote efficient use of resources (including pooling resources) across related sectors and agendas; and
• promote standardized evidence-informed approaches to reducing drowning deaths, and their scale-up, tailored to local needs.

Get involved

The GADP seeks inputs on the draft Global strategy document from the global drowning prevention community. The strategy is open for public consultation between 25 July 2025 – 15 September 2025. To provide your input, download the Global strategy from the following link.

There are two possible ways of providing your input on the Global strategy, both of them optional. There is a brief survey that has been set up asking for your general impressions and thoughts on a number of key components of the Global strategy. We expect the survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. If you would like to complete this survey, please do so by going to the following link.

You can also make more detailed suggestions and comments directly within the .pdf of the Global strategy document and send them to us. Simply mark up the .pdf of the Global strategy, save your changes, and send the revised .pdf to us at: gadp@who.int.

Research and data are essential to effective drowning prevention efforts, forming the foundation for policy development, targeted interventions, and resource allocation. Despite the significant burden of drowning, there remains a critical lack of high-quality, context-specific research to inform scalable and sustainable solutions. Therefore, sustained investment in evidence-informed strategic measures tailored to diverse contexts is crucial. Addressing these gaps through rigorous and methodologically sound studies will ensure that drowning prevention strategies are adapted to regional and population-specific risks, ultimately transforming political commitments into tangible, life-saving actions.

The GADP is develop a global research agenda which identifies and prioritizes current knowledge gaps, providing guidance for the research community as to where further efforts are needed.

Get involved

The GADP seeks inputs on a global research agenda prioritization exercise from the global drowning prevention community. A Delphi survey is now open for public input and will remain open until 15 September 2025. We expect that completing this survey will take less than 10 minutes of time.

To complete the survey and provide your inputs on a global research agenda, please go to the following link.