Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part B (Russia)
November 22, 2004, Monday

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS

SOURCE: Novoe Vremya, No. 47, November 21, 2004, p. 10

by Nikolai Popov

In evaluating the most pressing problems facing Russia and the world
as a whole, our people come up with various priority rankings for
ourselves and the rest of the world. The majority, however, viewed
one particular problem as the top priority: poverty. Forty-seven
percent of respondents name poverty as Russia’s major problem; 49%
say it is the major problem for the world as a whole. Subsequent
priorities differ. According to 45% of respondents, Russia’s second
most important problem is rising prices, or inflation. For the world
as whole, respondents put environmental protection in second place –
named as the biggest problem by 13%. Finally, Russian respondents
name “conquering AIDS, malaria, and other major diseases” as the
third most important problem for the world as a whole; for Russia,
third place goes to unemployment, named by 37% of respondents.

Further down the ranking of global problems, Russian respondents
named the following: reducing child mortality (7%), creating an
organization for helping poor countries (4%), better healthcare for
mothers (3%), eliminating illiteracy (3%), and gender equality (1%).

The selection of problems to be ranked was compiled by the United
Nations, which has set the goal of resolving them by 2015.

After the top three, respondents named the following problems as the
most important for Russia: drug abuse (33%), rising crime rates
(29%), weakness of state authority (20%), greed and bribe-taking
among the bureaucracy and state officials (15%), housing and
utilities problems like heating, water, and electricity supplies
(12%), delays in payment of wages or pensions (7%), international
problems (3%), and interethnic problems within Russia (3%). The total
adds up to over 100% because respondents were allowed to pick two or
three choices from the list of domestic problems.

As a recent international Gallup poll indicated, most of the world’s
population views eliminating poverty and hunger as the top priority:
44% of respondents named this as the main problem. The highest
percentage of respondents named this as the top priority in the
Middle East (62%); the lowest percentage (29%) in North America,
where people are evidently poorly-informed about poverty and hunger
in other parts of the world. The global poll’s second priority was
creating an organization for helping poor countries (12%), followed
by 10% each for environmental protection, fighting disease, and
ensuring universal basic education. These average figures conceal
some strong disparities between responses from various parts of the
world. For example, environmental protection was named as the top
priority by 21% of respondents in the Asia-Pacific, but only 1% in
Africa, where fighting disease scored 22%.

Actually, whether any particular problem is given priority in any
particular country depends on various considerations, frequently
contradictory. In East-Central Europe, where economies still lag
behind those of the developed world, only 5% of respondents consider
it very important to create an organization for helping poor
countries. The people of East-Central Europe aren’t counting on
getting any such aid themselves, but they are not yet prepared to
participate as donors. In these countries, fighting epidemic diseases
is viewed as more important than the global average response: 14% of
respondents in East-Central Europe name this problem as the most
important. And this problem is viewed as very serious in some
countries: 26% of respondents in Ukraine named it as the world’s top
priority, 21% of respondents in Estonia, and 20% in Lithuania.

In general, respondents in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
are similar in their evaluation of their own problems, although there
are some substantial differences. In all these countries, the top
three problems named as the most serious are the following: poverty,
inflation, and unemployment. In some countries, respondents give
unemployment second or even first priority among their concerns:
Armenia – 82%, top priority; Kyrgyzstan – 69%, second place;
Lithuania – 62%, top priority; Bulgaria – 63%, second place. Drug
abuse is gradually pulling ahead of corruption as the most serious
problem: 35% of respondents in Kazakhstan name it as their top
concern, 33% in Russia, and 23% in Ukraine. At the same time, only
11% of respondents in Moldova and 5% in Armenia name drug abuse as
the top priority.

Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress