The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are some of the most water-scarce regions in the world. With approximately 6 percent of the world's population, the region has about 1.4 percent of the world's renewable freshwater.

In Iraq, a severe water crisis caused by multiple factors is greatly compounded by the policy of Iraq's neighbors, which has considerably decreased the flow of water in many of the countries' rivers, especially in its two greatest rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Iraq accuses Turkey, and to a lesser extent Syria, of sharply reducing the Euphrates' water flow by constructing hydroelectric dams on it, thus damaging Iraq's already struggling agricultural sector.

It accuses Iran of diverting major Tigris tributaries that have cut the flow of water in this river as well. Indeed, a report issued recently by the European Water Association warned that Iraq could completely lose the waters of its two major rivers by 2040. Iraq, the report warns, is facing "a real disaster," which would mean that the country will become an extension of the Arabian Peninsula desert.