Afghan children face the worst chances of survival on the planet. Considered one of the most dangerous places on earth, Afghanistan is wracked with political turmoil, war, drought, and extreme winters. The country has the highest proportion of chronically malnourished children, resulting in widespread stunting.

Stunting is more than being short. Children with stunted growth — like six out of 10 in Afghanistan — have little opportunity to thrive. Stunting causes impairment in brain development, which means a child is less likely to learn, and later in life earn a livable income. Their weakened immune systems make them more vulnerable to disease.

In the last decade, World Vision trained hundreds of health professionals in western Afghanistan to care for pregnant women and their children before, during, and after birth. Supplying farmers with tools and drought-resistant seeds — and appropriate training — World Vision helped hundreds more families balance their diets and increase their incomes through greater crop yields.

Poverty is rampant in the world’s second most populous nation: More than 80 percent of Indians (about 700 million) live on less than $1.25 a day. With one of the world’s fastest growing economies, India remains painfully thin on nutrition for growth. Forty-eight percent of the nation’s children younger than 5 are stunted.

World Vision’s approach to helping India’s chronically malnourished children varies across a vast culturally and geographically diverse landscape. About 61 million children younger than 5 are stunted, UNICEF says. That’s 30 percent of the world’s stunted children — in one country.

In 2013, World Vision provided supplementary feeding programs for more than 46,000 children across India to prevent malnutrition. Other programs help expecting and nursing mothers improve their own health to ensure their babies are well-nourished en-utero and before age 2.

Malawi, known as “the warm heart of Africa,” is hurting. The country faces recurring hunger issues. Widespread drought in 2012 caused major food shortages and further degraded the nation’s already fragile agricultural system.

World Vision helps thousands of Malawi farmers to increase crop yield through irrigation farming, rainwater harvesting, resource management, and the introduction of drought-resistant seeds. Some farmers have learned to raise dairy animals, providing important new sources of nutrition and income.

Many communities now have World Vision-trained volunteers to monitor growth in malnourished children. With efforts to improve maternal and child health and nutrition, World Vision aims to directly help 1.5 million Malawi children through 2015.

Start with an onion. Add an herb. Share with your children. In this Central American nation, families work together to keep their children nourished through a program they helped pioneer, Corazón en Familia (heart of the family).

More than half of Guatemalans live below the poverty line. As a result, 48 percent of its children younger than 5 are malnourished and stunted.

Through neighborhood Common Pot sessions, struggling families learn from mothers whose families have well-established healthy eating habits. World Vision staff and local volunteer “guide mothers” teach members of more than 450 groups in 139 communities to prepare nutritious meals and recognize health-risk warning signs in their infants.

More than 1,400 children benefited from Common Pot in 2013, and hundreds more avoided severe malnutrition through access to World Vision's emergency feeding programs.