Europe and Central Asia is seeing a movement to the extremes: A growing number of people now live in countries that are either Open or in Crisis, with a clearer than ever contrast between the East and West of the region.

The decline in the region’s Human Score has accelerated over the last decade – but even with the drop in scores, all the countries with the top 10 Global Expression Scores are still in this region.

Nearly half (49%) the countries in Europe and Central Asia have seen declines in their scores over the last decade.

Over the last year alone, scores declined in 6 countries, while only 1 country’s score advanced.

In the last 10 years, countries in the region saw a combined advance of just 27 points, while declines in country scores totalled 287 points – nearly on a par with Asia and the Pacific, a region with a comparable number of countries where we saw the largest combined decline in expression regionally.