What makes this particularly painful for that residents of Khuzestan is that the dams on the Karun are not only used for generating energy and irrigating agricultural land, they are also used to channel water via tunnels to other provinces, notably Isfahan in central Iran, which is politically more power. Many residents in Khuzestan feel that their water is being stolen.

Using 1990 as a baseline year, it was calculated that in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water and sanitation by 2015, Sudan would have to attain 82% access to improved drinking water sources and 67% access to adequate sanitation.