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India performs poorly in the Global Hunger Index 2020
About the Global Hunger Index
- GHI is a peer-reviewed report released annually by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe
- GHI is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels.
- GHI scores are based on the values of four component indicators:
- undernourishment (share of the population with insufficient caloric intake)
- child wasting (share of children under age five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition)
- child stunting (share of children under age five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition), and
- child mortality (mortality rate of children under age five, partly reflecting the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments).
- Based on the values of the four indicators, the GHI determines hunger on a 100-point scale where 0 is the best possible score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.
- Each country’s GHI score is classified by severity, from low to extremely alarming
Performance of countries around the world
The index measures that nearly 690 million people are undernourished; 144 million children suffer from stunting, a sign of chronic undernutrition; 47 million children suffer from wasting, a sign of acute undernutrition; and in 2018, 5.3 million children died before their fifth birthdays, in many cases as a result of undernutrition.
- Worldwide hunger is at a moderate level, according to the 2020 Global Hunger Index.
- Africa, South of the Sahara and South Asia have the highest hunger and undernutrition levels among world regions, with 2020 GHI scores of 27.8 and 26.0, respectively—both considered serious.
- According to 2020 GHI scores, 3 countries have alarming levels of hunger – Chad, Timor-Leste, and Madagascar.
- Hunger is also considered to be alarming in 8 countries – Burundi, Central African Republic, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen – based on provisional categorizations
- According to the index, the world is not on track to achieve the second Sustainable Development Goal – known as Zero Hunger for short – by 2030.
Status of India
- India as the highest prevalence of ‘wasted children under five years in the world
- In total, India ranks 94 out of 107 countries in the Index, lower than neighbours such as Bangladesh (75) and Pakistan (88). 2020 scores reflect data from 2015-19.
Source: The Hindu
