Half of Iraq schools lack drinking water: UNICEF

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Half of the students currently enrolled in schools in Iraq do not have access to clean drinking water, a UNICEF official told Rudaw on Monday. 

In cooperation with both the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as well as Iraq’s central statistics body, UNICEF conducted surveys in 2021 regarding the conditions of water and sanitation services in over 9,000 schools in the country, Ali al-Khateeb, UNICEF Chief of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) in Iraq, told Rudaw’s Dilbixwin Dara. 

“These surveys show that drinking water is not available in 50 percent of schools in Iraq,” Khateeb said.

According to Khateeb, schools are facing water scarcity due to the sharing of buildings among multiple schools with different schedules, an issue which is affecting over 1,000 students in each school who are unable to access water. Furthermore, the lack of safe toilets in schools is discouraging students, especially teenage girls, from attending.

As part of the five-year plan co-championed with the Iraqi government, UNICEF is currently implementing over 300 projects in schools and local communities with the aim of providing drinking water to students. This initiative also seeks to support students in continuing their studies, Khatib said. 

“Among these projects are consumption rationalization projects and the installation of solar energy systems to provide a complete lighting and a ventilation system inside schools that ensures the delivery of electrical power to some Iraqi schools,” he said, adding that they have completed the installation of solar energy systems in more than 150 out of 250 schools all over the country, including the Kurdistan Region’s provinces. 

The UNICEF chief of WASH also said that according to a 2022 complete environmental survey conducted in partnership with the Iraqi planning ministry and the KRG’s municipalities and tourism ministry, only 60 percent of Iraqis have access to drinking water despite 84 percent having access to drinking water sanitation services, adding that there is a huge difference between the services in urban and rural areas.

Iraq is currently facing a general water shortage, according to Khateeb. The southern provinces of the country are the most severely impacted, particularly those that rely on the Euphrates River. The water levels have significantly decreased in provinces such as Anbar, Diwaniyah, Muthanna, and Dhi Qar. Additionally, there is a lack of water also in the Kurdistan Region, especially in the capital city of Erbil, which relies on groundwater.

“The decrease in the level [of groundwater] affected the sustainability of the provision of drinking water in the Kurdistan Region,” Khateeb said.

According to the United Nations, Iraq is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, including water and food insecurity. It is facing a severe water shortage because of reduced precipitation and higher temperatures, as well as waste and mismanagement. The crisis is worsened by dams upstream in Turkey and Iran that have led to a significant decrease in the volume of water entering the country.

In August, Khaled al-Shamali, spokesman of the Iraqi ministry of water resources, told Rudaw that Iraq’s water reserves are the lowest in the country’s history, having decreased to half of last year’s amount.

Khateeb said that Iraq is ranked 61st out of 163 countries on UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index, and the United Nations Global Environment Outlook 6 (GEO-6) ranks it the fifth most vulnerable country to water and food shortages and extreme temperatures.

The UN Environment Program (UNEP) has long warned that water availability in Iraq will decrease by around 20 percent by 2025, threatening the long-term stability of the agriculture and industry sectors.