1. The 2019 Global Hunger Index (GHI) has ranked India 102 among the 117 countries. In 2018, India was pegged at 103 among 119 countries.
2. India is one of the 47 countries that have “serious” levels of hunger.
3. The 2019 GHI report has found that globally the number of hungry people has risen from 785 million in 2015 to 822 million.
4. Multiple countries have higher hunger levels now than in 2010, and about 45 countries are set to fail to achieve ‘low’ levels of hunger by 2030.
What is the Global Hunger Index?
1. It is an index categorizing countries on a scale ranging from “low” hunger to “moderate”, “serious”, “alarming”, and “extremely alarming”.
2. A low score gets a country a higher ranking and implies better performance.
3. The reason for mapping hunger is to ensure that the world achieves “Zero Hunger by 2030” — one of the Sustainable Development Goals laid out by the United Nations.
4. It is for this reason that GHI scores are not calculated for certain high-income countries.
5. It is brought out almost every year by Welthungerhilfe (German NGO) since 2000.
How does GHI measure hunger?
1. GHI tracks the performance of different countries on four key parameters that capture multiple dimensions.
For each country in the list, the GHI looks at four indicators:
a. Undernourishment (which reflects inadequate food availability): Calculated by the share of the population that is undernourished.
b. Child Wasting (which reflects acute undernutrition): Calculated by the share of children under the age of five who are wasted (low weight for their height).
c. Child Stunting (which reflects chronic undernutrition): Calculated by the share of children under the age of five who are stunted (low height for their age).
d. Child Mortality (which reflects both inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environment): Calculated by the mortality rate of children under the age of five.
2. Each country’s data are standardized on a 100-point scale and a final score is calculated after giving 33.33% weight each to components ‘a’ and ‘d’ and 16.66% weight each to components ‘b’ and ‘c’.
3. Countries scoring less than or equal to 9.9 are slotted in the “low” category of hunger, while those scoring between 20 and 34.9 are in the “serious” category and those scoring above 50 are in the “extremely alarming” category.
Where lies India’s score?
1. Among the BRICS grouping, India is ranked the worst, with China at 25 and a score of just 6.5.
2. Within South Asia, too, India is behind every other country. Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan respectively are all ahead of India.
3. Some of the other countries ahead of India are Saudi Arabia (rank 34), Venezuela (rank 65), Lesotho (rank 79), Burkina Faso (rank 88), and North Korea (rank 92).
4. India has the world’s largest democracy and one of the biggest economies. But most of the countries below India such as Afghanistan, Haiti or Yemen, etc — are either poorly governed or war-torn or ravaged by natural calamities.
Which are the reasons for low rank?
1. India’s overall score is 30.3. In 2000, India’s score was 38.8 and its hunger level was in the “alarming” category.
2. Since then, India has steadily improved on most counts to reduce its score and is now slotted in the “serious” category.
3. But the pace of India’s improvement has been relatively slow. Countries such as Niger and Sierra Leone in 2000 had scores of 52.1 and 53.6, respectively, but now they score 30.2 and 30.4, almost the same as India.
4. Even though India has improved its score, other countries have done better. So, despite achieving relatively fast economic growth since 2000, India has not been able to improve its ranking.
Why India’s improvements have been slow?
1. Of the overall improvements, India has worsened in the child wasting category which has 33.33% weightage.
2. It has gone up from 16.5% in 2010 to 20.8% now. India is the worst among all countries on this parameter.
3. The child stunting rate is 37.9%. It is also categorized as very high in terms of its public health significance.
4. In India, just 9.6 percent of all children between 6 and 23 months of age are fed a minimum acceptable diet.
5. The government initiated the ‘Clean India’ campaign to end open defecation and ensure that all households had latrines.
6. Even with new latrine construction, the population’s health and consequently children’s growth and development as their ability to absorb nutrients are compromised.
