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Issues and how World Vision responds
These pages give you a brief insight into the main poverty issues and problems children and their families face throughout the region and what activities World Vision has implemented to address the issues.
Click on the following subcategories for more details.
No other region has been through such a  fundamental transformation of its societies, economic base, and even its borders. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, eight countries within Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union have splintered into 27 countries, and each one went through some kind of economic crisis in the 1990s. One-third of them experienced conflict and war. Over the past twelve years, more than 400 million people from this particular part of the region in which World Vision is active, were forced to adapt to a radically new political, economic and social landscape.
The transition process has seen new freedoms go hand in hand with new threats, such as growing poverty, with serious consequences for social development and the lives of children.
There are growing disparities between rich and poor. Almost 18 million children now live in absolute poverty, in households surviving on less than $2.15 per person, per day, and there has been a dramatic increase in the unequal distribution of wealth. In the 1980s, the incomes of the rich were, typically, 3 to 3.5 times higher than those of the poor. By the end of the 1990s, they were 8 to 10 times higher. Almost 1 million children who were aged 5-14 in 1989 left the region in 1999. Some have sought out better opportunities in other parts of the world, but some have been lured into illegal work or the sex trade. Woman and child trafficking is increasingly becoming a very serious problem in the region.
In the Middle East and Central Asia war and political violence are key underlying factors affecting the development of societies. Lebanon and Afghanistan endured a destructive (civil) war, from which both countries are still suffering physically and psychologically. The populations of Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza have been subjected to the prolonged direct and indirect effects of life under military occupation, including movement restrictions, closure of territories, land seizure, military sieges and periodic outbreaks of political violence.
The massive increase in poverty rates and unemployment, school closures, destruction of infrastructure, pressure on the family unit and violence within families are the clear symptoms of a collapsing society, which are widespread throughout this region.
 Latest reports on Central and Eastern European states and on the former Soviet Union show a substantial drop in family income, rampant unemployment, family benefit losses and rocketing wage inequality. The reports analyse the welfare impact of increasing trends in single-parent households, falling birth rates and growing divorce rates. Additionally, children's exposure to conflict and displacement in the region and the hardships that result is also increasing.
Poor nutrition, alcoholism, smoking, stress in the workplace and at home, increasing violence and premature death are also taking their toll.  In the former Soviet Union especially, there has been an unprecedented increase in the deaths of working-age men.
Across the region as a whole, hundreds of thousands of children have experienced the premature death of parents (mostly fathers) in their prime child-rearing ages. The most obvious risk children face from these traumas in orphan hood. There were 3.2 million "excess" deaths in the 1990s in the region; deaths mostly of adult males- that would not have occurred if mortality rates stayed at their 1989 levels. High levels of child malnutrition are starting to appear in parts of the region and there has been an alarming upsurge in tuberculosis, a disease that thrives in conditions of poverty and insecurity.
However, the underlying potential risks are multi-dimensional and go beyond the numbers of premature parental deaths. The pressures of the (economic) transition and of the many recent conflicts appear to be splitting families apart and eroding parental responsibility. In addition to higher divorce rates, fewer divorced fathers are providing regular support to their families.
There are also mounting concerns about the accessibility and quality of health and education. Budget cuts have weakened education in many countries, for example. Obsolete equipment, unheated classrooms, outdated books, curricula and teaching methods and underpaid teachers are some of the obvious obstacles.
Across the region, more than 32,000 pre-schools closed by 1999 and falling pre-school enrolment means that many children are ill equipped for primary education. There has been a drop in enrolment in compulsory education, and a dramatic fall in post-compulsory enrolment. Almost nine million 15-18 year-olds are now out of school - up from six million in 1989. It is clear that the original ideals of the transition, to raise the standard of living for everyone and to develop humane and democratic societies, need to be re-affirmed.
Economic growth, in itself, is not enough to ensure the well-being of children and their families. The future economic growth of the region must be harnessed to benefit everyone - particularly children. Child poverty can be moved to centre stage. The unchecked spread of HIV/AIDS can be prevented. Child institutionalisation can be ended.
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- There has been conflict in one third of the region's countries since 1989. By late 2000, 2.2 million people were registered as internally displaced and almost one million as refugees.
- There has been a sharp drop in births. Marriage rates also fell by a third on average, and the average percentage of children born outside marriage doubled from 11 per cent to 22 per cent.
- National incomes have grown in nearly every country since 1998 and there is increasing economic stability. In theory, things should be getting better for families.
- Signs of crisis include the escalating HIV/AIDS epidemic, continued child poverty, child institutionalization, and the poor state of education: An estimated 1 million cases of HIV/AIDS were recorded at the end of 2001; almost 18 million children in poverty and around 1.5 million children were registered in public care.
- The debt crisis is growing.
- While infant mortality rates, teen birth rates, maternal mortality and adolescent deaths have fallen in most countries, surveys show that infant and under-5 mortality rates have increased in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
- In Russia, mortality rates for those aged 20-24 were higher in 2000 than at any time since 1989 and male life expectancy is about 59 years - lower than in India.
- On average, tuberculosis incidence has risen by 50%, with significant increases in poorer countries.
- There are high levels of child malnutrition in some parts of the region.
- There are almost nine million 15-18 year-olds out of school in the CIS countries - up from six million in 1989.
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 More than 43% of Armenia's population lives below the poverty line
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Then there is HIV/AIDS, which is spreading at a faster rate in some countries within the region than in any other part of the world. In just six years, the number of HIV/AIDS infection increased 80 fold, from 12,000 in 1995 to one million in 2001.
It is now certain that HIV/AIDS, often regarded in the region as a problem affecting drug users alone, is spreading into the mainstream population. Immediate and radical action will be needed to halt the advance of the disease.
