Country Comments

Iraq has been averaging a fertility rate of just over four children per mother since 2015

With ⅔ of the country arid or semi arid, Iraq’s renewable resources are limited. The country’s population exceeds its sustainable carrying capacity by nine times, and it is adding an average of one million more citizens a year since 2015.

The UN FAO reports only half of the demand for water in Iraq is being met, and the amount of water available per capita has declined over the last half century by a whopping 75 percent. Iraq's population is steadily growing, raising concerns about a future economic crisis and the government's inability to provide basic services. Population growth combined with the need to produce more food from a limited and shrinking resource base of land and water have resulted in farming systems that tend to maximize short-term returns at the expense of long-term sustainability. In June of 2022 Iraq recognizing the impending economic and societal crisis of unsustainable population growth, its Ministry announced the launch of population policies that surround education, family planning and reproductive health.