GLOBAL
HUNGER INDEX - REPORTS & INDICES
News:
India ranks 111 out of
125 countries in Global Hunger Index
What's
in the news?
●
India ranks 111 out of a total of 125
countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2023, with its progress against
hunger nearly halted since 2015, reflecting a global trend.
●
The Union government, though, contested
India’s performance for the third year in a row, citing flawed methodology.
Global
Hunger Index:
●
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool
for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional and
national levels.
●
The GHI is published annually as part of a
partnership between Concern Worldwide,
Ireland’s largest aid and humanitarian agency and Welthungerhilfe.
Indicators:
●
GHI scores are based on the values of four component indicators such as
○
Undernourishment
○
Child stunting
○
Child wasting
○
Child mortality.
●
The GHI score is calculated on a 100-point
scale reflecting the severity of hunger, where zero is the best score (no
hunger) and 100 is the worst.
Observations
of Global Hunger Index 2023:
The GHI 2023 provides a
ranking of 125 countries. The key observations are being discussed below:
1.
Global Hunger Index 2023:
●
The global average GHI score in 2023 is 18.3, which is considered moderate and
is slightly lower than the global GHI score of 19.1 in 2015.
2.
Global Undernourishment:
●
Since 2017, the prevalence of
undernourishment has been on the rise and the number of undernourished people
has climbed from 572 million to about 735 million.
3.
Highest Hunger levels:
●
South
Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are the world regions with the
highest hunger levels, with GHI scores of 27.0
each, indicating serious hunger.
●
West Asia and North Africa are the regions
with the third-highest hunger level, with a score of 11.9 indicating a
“moderate” hunger level.
4.
GHI score deteriorating regions:
●
Latin
America and the Caribbean are the only regions in the world
whose GHI scores have worsened between 2015 and 2023.
5.
Southeast Asia:
●
The region with the second-lowest 2023 GHI
score in the report is East and Southeast Asia, which is dominated by populous
China.
●
For example, one of the top 20 nations
with a GHI score of less than 5 is China.
6.
Lowest GHI:
●
Europe
and Central Asia has the lowest 2023 GHI score, with a
score of 6.0, which is regarded as "low".
7.
Stagnation in hunger reduction:
●
The 2023 Global Hunger Index (GHI)
indicates that, after years of progress until 2015, advancement against hunger
around the world remains largely at a standstill.
●
This stagnation is largely the result of
the interconnected effects of various crises.
●
These include the COVID-19 pandemic, the
war between Russia and Ukraine, economic stagnation, the effects of climate
change and the unresolved conflicts worldwide, etc.
Global
Hunger Index and India:
●
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2023 places
India at position 111, with its
progress against hunger stagnated since 2015.
●
India has slipped four positions as compared to last year (107).
●
However, the Union government disputed
India's performance for the third consecutive year, citing questionable
methodology and labelling it “erroneous and having malafide intent”.
1.
GHI Score of India:
●
India has acquired a score of 28.7 in GHI 2023, indicating a severe
level of hunger.
2.
Comparison with Neighbours:
●
India’s rank is below its neighbours - Sri Lanka (60), Bangladesh (81), Nepal (69),
and Pakistan (102).
3.
Undernourishment:
●
The undernourishment rate in India is 16.6 percent.
4.
Under-five mortality:
●
India’s under-five mortality rate is 3.1 percent.
5.
Prevalence of Anaemia:
●
The prevalence of anaemia in women between
the ages of 15-24 stood at 58.1 percent.
●
More than 50% of women and adolescents are
anaemic in the country, one of the highest across the world.
6.
Child-wasting rate:
●
As per the index, India also has the
highest child-wasting rate in the world at 18.7
percent, reflecting acute undernutrition.
Go
back to basics:
●
Undernourishment
- the
share of the population with insufficient caloric intake and inadequate food availability.
●
Child
stunting - the share of children under age five who have low
height for their age, reflecting chronic
undernutrition.
●
Child
wasting - the share of children under age five who have low
weight for their height, reflecting acute
undernutrition.
●
Child
mortality - the share of children who die before their fifth
birthday, partly reflecting the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments.