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PRESS BRIEFING BY THE UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION SERVICE
25 July 2023
World Drowning Prevention Day
Dr. David Meddings, Department of the Social Determinants of Health, at the World Health Organization (WHO), reminded that the first World Drowning Prevention Day had been marked in 2021. Drowning remained a major – and overlooked – global public health problem: 236,000 people died from drowning every year, which added to over 2.5 million deaths in the last decade, of which over 90 per cent had been in low- and middle-income countries.
Drowning could be prevented, stressed Dr. Meddings, and the WHO had published extensive guidance around interventions to prevent drowning. Interventions to prevent drowning included teaching school age children basic swimming skills and providing day care for pre-school children along with other interventions.
In 2023, the World Health Assembly (WHA) had adopted its first ever resolution on drowning, which had formally accepted the invitations in the UNGA resolution to WHO to coordinate action in the UN system on drowning and to facilitate observance of World Drowning Prevention Day. The WHA resolution had also called on the WHO to establish a global alliance for drowning prevention, and to prepare a global status report on drowning.
Dr. Meddings informed that today, the WHO was establishing the Global Alliance for Drowning Prevention, to be hosted by the WHO and be comprised of four other UN agencies: FAO, IMO, UNDP, and UNICEF, as well as five non-State actors, all of which had been actively engaged in drowning prevention at the global level for several years. Multisectoral approach to address this challenge was necessary, he stressed. WHO was also well underway with the preparation of its first ever Global Status Report on Drowning and aimed to launch this report in November 2024.
Today, the WHO was also launching its first ever investment case on drowning, which looked at scaling up two interventions in 50 low- and middle-income countries with the highest burden from drowning. These interventions were: providing day-care for pre-school children, and teaching school-age children basic swimming skills. By 2050, the two drowning prevention interventions could potentially save the lives of over 774 000 children and prevent close to one million nonfatal child drownings. In terms of economic benefits, these smart investments could cumulatively yield around USD 9 for every dollar invested, concluded Dr. Meddings.
Responding to questions, Dr. Meddings explained that living and working in and near water increased risks of drowning. Transport on and over water was another factor risk; in many places, children were transported to schools by waterways. Over 75 percent of mortality in floods were due to drownings, informed Dr. Meddings. He said that in southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific region most victims were very young children; in east Africa, many drownings also occurred among young adult males, often fishermen.
Transporting oil from FSO Safer
Replying to questions from the media, Sarah Bel, for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), informed that a dedicated briefing on this topic would be held in New York today, at 5 p.m. Geneva time. She said that the transfer of oil from FSO Safer off the coast of Yemen had just commenced, and extreme caution was needed. A spill would devastate fishing communities along the Yemen coast, wiping out 200,000 livelihoods. The oil could reach any country on the Red Sea, and the environmental impact would be severe; fish stock would take 25 years to recover. This was the first time that the UN had got involved in such an operation, said Ms. Bel.
More information is available here and here.
Black Sea Initiative
Replying to questions, Catherine Huissoud, for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said that all efforts were being made to bring Russia back into the Black Sea Initiative. Rolando Gómez, for the UN Information Service (UNIS), added that the UN was continuing with its efforts to bring the deal back, and reminded that the Secretary-General had urged Russia to return to the Initiative.
Announcements
Tarik Jašarević, for the World Health Organization (WHO), informed that COVID-19 and mpox review committees were meeting this week. Back in May, both COVID and mpox had been declared to no longer be public health emergencies, but the experts continued to look into preparing and issuing standing recommendations, which were expected to be published the following week.
Rolando Gómez, for the UN Information Service (UNIS), informed that the Secretary-General had been in Rome to attend the Food System Summit; his statement is available here. The Secretary-General was returning to New York today, while the Deputy Secretary-General would be arriving to Rome today, and she would close the Summit on 26 July.
Human Rights Committee would end its 138th session on 26 July, at 3 p.m. During the session, the Committee had reviewed reports submitted by Brazil, Burundi, Colombia, Cyprus, Lesotho, State of Palestine, and Uganda. The Committee’s concluding observations regarding these reports would be published on the session webpage. The same day, at 1:30 p.m., the Committee would hold a hybrid press briefing to present findings on the countries reviewed.
On 27 July 2023 at 3 p.m., there would be a hybrid briefing by the World Health Organization (WHO), under embargo until 31 July at 12:30 p.m., to present its Report on the global tobacco epidemic. Speakers would be Dr. Ruediger Krech, WHO Director for Health Promotion; Dr. Kelly Henning, Public Health Lead, Bloomberg Philanthropies; and Dr. Kailesh Kumar Singh Jagutpal, Minister of Health and Wellness of Mauritius.
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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