World Bank Warns over Looming Plunge in Iraq Water Resources

People sit near a bridge on the shores of Iraq's Shatt al-Arab waterway where the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers converge. (AFP)
People sit near a bridge on the shores of Iraq's Shatt al-Arab waterway where the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers converge. (AFP)
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World Bank Warns over Looming Plunge in Iraq Water Resources

People sit near a bridge on the shores of Iraq's Shatt al-Arab waterway where the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers converge. (AFP)
People sit near a bridge on the shores of Iraq's Shatt al-Arab waterway where the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers converge. (AFP)

Iraq could suffer a 20-percent drop in water resources by 2050 due to climate change, the World Bank said Wednesday, warning of repercussions on growth and jobs.

Water is a crucial issue for the oil-rich country of 40 million that is facing an acute energy crisis, compounded by increasingly severe droughts and low rainfall.

"Without action, water constraints will lead to large losses across multiple sectors of the economy and come to affect more and more vulnerable people," the World Bank's Saroj Kumar Jha said in a statement accompanying a new report.

"By 2050, a temperature increase of one degree Celsius, and a precipitation decrease of 10 percent would cause a 20 percent reduction of available freshwater" in Iraq, the report said.

"Under these circumstances, nearly one-third of the irrigated land in Iraq will have no water by the year 2050."

Economic modelling showed that "real GDP in Iraq could drop by up to 4 percent, or $6.6 billion compared to 2016 levels", according to the report.

Demand for unskilled labor in the agricultural sector could fall by 11.8 percent, and by 5.4 percent for non-agricultural activities.

Water scarcity "is linked to small-scale forced displacement in Iraq", the World Bank warned, particularly in the country's south.

In 2014, Iraq prepared a 20-year, $180-billion plan to manage its water crisis.

But it was stillborn as the ISIS group seized a third of the country the same year and money was diverted to fight the extremists.

In 2018, financing for the water ministry accounted for less than 0.2 percent of the country's overall budget, with just $15 million.

"The current state of infrastructure has led to salinity affecting approximately 60 percent of the cultivated land and a 30-60 percent reduction in yield," the report said.

On a positive note, the World Bank said Iraq's economic outlook had improved "on the back of the recovery of global oil markets", adding its GDP was projected to grow from 2.6 percent this year to more than six percent in 2022-2023.



In Reverse of a Longtime Stance, US Says UN Palestinian Refugee Agency Isn't Immune from Lawsuits

FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa
FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa
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In Reverse of a Longtime Stance, US Says UN Palestinian Refugee Agency Isn't Immune from Lawsuits

FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa
FILED - 10 February 2024, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: Palestinians examine the damage to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) buildings on their way back to their homes in the wake of the Israeli army withdrew from North of Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ishaq/dpa

The Trump administration has decided that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees is not immune from being sued, reversing the US government's longstanding position that the organization was protected from civil liability.
The Justice Department revealed its new stance in a letter it filed in federal court in New York on Thursday as part of a lawsuit that aims to hold the agency, known as UNRWA, accountable for the Oct. 7, 2023, deadly attack on Israel by Hamas. The change in position underscores the hardened perspective toward the agency under the Trump administration following allegations by Israel that some of the agency staff was involved in the Hamas rampage.
The lawsuit, filed by families of some of the victims of the massacre, alleges that UNRWA had aided Hamas by, among other things, permitting weapons storage and deployment centers in its schools and medical clinics and by employing Hamas members. Lawyers for UNRWA have called the lawsuit “absurd” and have said in court filings that the agency was immune from liability as a “subsidiary organ” of the United Nations.
The previous US stance protected the agency
In a statement Friday, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said the Justice Department filing reversed the US government's “longstanding recognition that UNRWA is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly and an integral part of the United Nations, entitled to immunity from legal process.” She said the agency would continue to make its case before the court and "will consider whether any other action is appropriate with respect to the letter.”
The Justice Department acknowledged in its 10-page letter that though its position had been that UNRWA was shielded from litigation, “the Government has since reevaluated that position, and now concludes UNRWA is not immune from this litigation.”
“The complaint in this case alleges atrocious conduct on the part of UNRWA and its officers. Of course, such allegations are only the first step on a long road, where plaintiffs will be required to prove what they have alleged. But UNRWA is not above that process — nor are the bulk of the remaining defendants,” the letter states. “The Government believes they must answer these allegations in American courts. The prior Administration’s view that they do not was wrong.”
The letter was signed by Jay Clayton, the new US attorney in Manhattan, and another lawyer in the office, as well as Yaakov Roth, the acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's civil division.
The agency has assisted Palestinians since the 1940s
UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide relief for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which followed the establishment of Israel, as well as their descendants, until there is a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The agency provides aid and services — including health and education — to some 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as 3 million more in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Since the Israel-Hamas war, it has been the main lifeline for a population reliant on humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Israel alleged that 19 out of UNRWA’s approximately 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in Hamas’ attack in southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and set off the war in Gaza.
UNRWA said it fired nine staffers after an internal UN investigation concluded that they could have been involved, although the evidence was not authenticated or corroborated. Israel later alleged that about 100 other Palestinians in Gaza were Hamas members, but never provided any evidence to the United Nations.