Water safety is often treated as a seasonal reminder, but drowning remains a silent global crisis, claiming over 300,000 lives each year, mostly in developing nations.
To break this cycle, the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched PROTECT, a seven-step blueprint shifting focus from reactive rescues to proactive prevention.
From securing open rural water sources to building climate resilience against heatwaves, WHO stresses that saving lives in South Africa demands far more than basic swimming lessons and poolside supervision.
Water defines a South African summer, bringing to mind fond memories of pools and the surf, yet carrying the stark risk of sudden danger. Tragically, for far too many families, an ordinary day near the water can end in heartbreak.
That is the reality behind a new WHO package aimed at changing how countries prevent drowning, not simply reacting after someone is already in the water, but building safer communities before the emergency happens.
Launched in Accra, Ghana, on July 24, ahead of World Drowning Prevention Day on July 25, the PROTECT technical package outlines seven evidence-based strategies that governments and communities can use to reduce drowning deaths.
The timing matters. WHO estimates that more than 300 000 people drown every year globally, with children and young people among those most vulnerable. More than 90% of drowning deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
For South African families, where swimming pools, beaches, dams, rivers, and holiday destinations are part of everyday life, the message is simple: water safety cannot be treated as a holiday reminder. It has to become part of how we live around water.
So, what is PROTECT?
The WHO framework takes seven areas that can prevent drowning and turns them into a practical policy blueprint.
- P - Physical infrastructure: Make interaction with water safer through measures such as barriers and safer environments.
- R - Rescue and resuscitation: Improve the ability of trained bystanders and professional responders to perform safe rescue and resuscitation.
- O - Occupational safety: Protect people whose jobs put them around water, including ensuring access to appropriate safety equipment and training.
- T - Transport safety: Strengthen safety standards for boats and other forms of water transport.
- E - Education: Teach children basic swimming and water-safety skills.
- C - Childcare and safeguarding: Provide safe places away from water and stronger supervision systems for young children.
- T - Threat preparedness: Help communities prepare for floods and other emergencies where water suddenly becomes dangerous.
The point is important: learning to swim is only one piece of the puzzle. A child who can swim is not automatically safe in an unsupervised pool, fast-moving river or during a flood.
The WHO director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: “Every drowning is a tragedy, and most are preventable.” He added that drowning prevention “isn't the job of one ministry; it belongs to everyone, and the lives it saves are the reward.”
The climate crisis is changing the water-safety conversation
Climate change is increasing exposure to floods, storms and extreme heat. WHO cites research from the United Kingdom showing that drowning deaths increased by 7.2% for every 1°C rise in temperature, while the risk was nearly five times higher on days above 25°C than on days below 10°C.
In other words, drowning prevention is no longer only about swimming pools and summer holidays. It is also about climate resilience, urban planning and disaster preparedness.
There is evidence that community action can work
Thailand offers one of the clearest examples highlighted by WHO. In 2006, drowning was the leading cause of death among children under 15, with around 1 500 children dying each year.
The response was not one expensive fix. Communities combined fencing around dangerous water, CPR training, swimming lessons, and local volunteer teams.
By 2022, child drowning deaths had fallen by 57%, with more than 5 000 community teams established across the country. WHO stresses that no single intervention achieved this; it was the accumulation of thousands of local actions.
In South Africa, organisations like the NSRI are already trialling elements of this blueprint, including the deployment of Pink Torpedo Buoys at beaches and survival swimming lessons in township schools. The challenge is scaling these up from NGO initiatives to state-backed national policy.
But there are real limitations
The blueprint is evidence-based, but implementing it is not equally easy everywhere.
In South Africa, this limitation is felt sharply in rural areas and informal settlements, where open infrastructure like greywater furrows, farm dams, and unfenced communal taps present daily risks that standard backyard pool safety advice cannot solve.
The WHO acknowledges that countries are at different stages and says PROTECT should be adapted to local circumstances rather than treated as a one-size-fits-all solution.
For parents, the practical takeaway remains close to home: watch children closely around water, teach swimming and water safety, secure pools and household water sources, know basic CPR, and never assume that a familiar swimming spot is automatically a safe one.
Water should be a place for play, exercise, travel, and connection. The WHO argues that making it safer cannot be left to the lifeguard at the gate or the parent watching from the poolside. It has to be built into the environment around us.
vuyile.madwantsi@nationalmg.co.za