Alcohol policy development and capacity building have gained great momentum over the last couple of years with significant efforts, new tools, initiatives and resources to accelerate research and progress, particularly in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs; McCambridge, & Lesch, 2024;Parry & Fitzgerald, 2020;Swahn et al., 2022;Walls et al., 2020). In this first special issue of two, in the International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research (IJADR), we include nine manuscripts specifically focusing on alcohol policy and advocacy in LMICs. Our goal of this special issue and related call for papers was to include a range of strategies and lessons learned to offer new insight and propel action.