Global Hunger Index 2022 | 15 Oct 2022

Why in News?

Barring the war-torn Afghanistan, India has performed worse than all the countries in the South Asian region in the Global Hunger Index 2022. It has ranked 107 out of 121 countries.

• India ranked 101 out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021.

What is the Global Hunger Index?

• The Global Hunger Index (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
  • Child stunting
  • Child wasting
  • Child mortality
• The GHI score is calculated on a 100-point scale reflecting the severity of hunger - zero is the best score (implies no hunger) and 100 is the worst.
• The GHI is prepared by European NGOs of Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.
• The GHI is an annual report and each set of GHI scores uses data from a 5-year period. The 2022 GHI scores are calculated using data from 2017 through 2021.

What is the Performance of Countries on GHI 2022?

• Global Progress: Globally, the progress against hunger has largely stagnated in recent years, with a global score of 18.2 in 2022 as compared to 19.1 in 2014, there is only a slight improvement. However, the 2022 GHI score is still considered “moderate”.
  • The plausible causes for the stagnation in this progress are overlapping crises such as conflicts among countries, climate change, the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the Russia-Ukraine war, which has increased global food, fuel, and fertiliser prices and is expected to “worsen hunger in 2023 and beyond”.
  • As per the index, there are 44 countries that currently have “serious” or “alarming” hunger levels and “without a major shift, neither the world as a whole nor approximately 46 countries are projected to achieve even low hunger as measured by the GHI by 2030.
• Top and Worst Performers:
  • Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Chile, China and Croatia are the top five countries in GHI 2022.
  • Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Central African Republic and Yemen are the countries ranked at the bottom of the index.
• India and Neighboring Countries: Among the South Asian countries, India (107) is ranked below Sri Lanka (64), Nepal (81), Bangladesh (84), and Pakistan (99).
  • India has a score of 29.1 which places it under ‘serious’ category.
  • Afghanistan (109) is the only country in South Asia that performs worse than India on the index.
  • China, with a score of less than 5, has topped the chart, topped the chart, together with 16 other countries.
• India’s Performance in the Four Indicators:
  • Child Wasting: India’s child wasting rate (low weight for height), at 19.3%, is worse than the levels recorded in 2014 (15.1%) and even 2000 (17.15%).
    • It is the highest for any country in the world and drives up the region’s average owing to India’s large population.
  • Undernourishment: Prevalence of undernourishment has also risen in the country from 14.6% in 2018-2020 to 16.3% in 2019-2021.
    • It implies that 224.3 million people in India (out of 828 million globally) are considered undernourished.
    • The indicator measures the proportion of the population facing chronic deficiency of dietary energy intake.
  • Child Stunting and Mortality: India has shown improvement in child stunting and child mortality.
    • Child stunting (low height for age) has declined from 38.7% to 35.5% between 2014 and 2022.
    • Child mortality (mortality rate under the age of five) has dropped from 4.6% to 3.3% in the same comparative period.

What Other Similar Indices/Reports are There?

• State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World:
  • Presented by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization.
• Global Nutrition Report, 2021:
  • It was conceived following the first Nutrition for Growth Initiative Summit (N4G) in 2013.
• National Family Health Survey (NFHS):
  • It comprises detailed information on key domains of population, health and family welfare - fertility, family planning, infant and child mortality, maternal and child health, nutrition and anaemia, morbidity and healthcare, women’s empowerment etc.

 Infographics 

Source: TH