4.
CHAD
FSI
score: 107.6 
Chad's fortunes appeared to improve in 2010, when President Idriss Déby and Bashir, his Sudanese counterpart, ended long-simmering hostilities between the two neighbors (the troubled Darfur region sits along their shared border). But 2011 -- the 50th anniversary of Chad's independence from France -- brought more tumult. Déby secured a fourth term in a race that was boycotted by opposition parties, who accused the president's party of rigging previous parliamentary elections. More recently, the impoverished central African nation experienced a food emergency as part of a larger crisis in the Sahel region. Journalist Steve Coll has described Chad, which became an oil-producing nation in 2003, as "a poster child for the resource curse."
Above, women in colorful, flowing fabrics gather around a shared human and animal watering hole near Lake Chad.
Photo by Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images
