India ranks 111th on Global Hunger Index 2023

What’s in today’s article?

• Why in News?
• About Global Hunger Index (GHI)
• What does GHI Indicate?
• How is GHI Defined?
• Consequences & Implications
• News Summary
• Criticism of the GHI Report by the Union Government

Why in News?

• India ranked 111th out of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2023, a standing the government termed “erroneous and having malafide intent”.

About Global Hunger Index (GHI)

• Created in 2006, the GHI was initially published by the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Germany-based Welthungerhilfe.
• In 2007, the Irish NGO Concern Worldwide also became a co-publisher.
• In 2018, IFPRI stepped aside from its involvement in the project and the GHI became a joint project of Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide.

What does GHI Indicate?

• The global hunger index is a means of monitoring whether countries are achieving hunger-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It can be used for international ranking.
  • Goal 2 of the SDGs aims to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030.
  • It also commits to universal access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food at all times of the year.

How is GHI Defined?

• The GHI captures three dimensions of hunger –
  • Insufficient availability of food,
  • Shortfalls in the nutritional status of children and
  • Child mortality
• Accordingly, the Index includes the following four equally weighted indicators:
• Countries are ranked on a 100-point scale, with 0 and 100 being the best and worst possible scores, respectively.

Consequences & Implications

• Hunger is one of the world's major problems and, therefore, one of its most important challenges.
• Hunger and undernourishment form a vicious circle, which is often "passed on" from generation to generation.
• The children of impoverished parents are often born underweight and are less resistant to disease; they grow up under conditions that impair their intellectual capacity for their whole lives.
• Factors that contribute to a high global hunger index have been identified as:
  • Low income and poverty,
  • War and violent conflict,
  • General lack of freedom,
  • Low women's status, and
  • Poorly targeted and delivered health and nutrition programmes.

News Summary

• India ranked 111th out of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index-2023 with the country reporting the highest child wasting rate at 18.7 per cent.
  • India ranked 107th out of 121 countries in 2022.
• With a score of 28.7 in the Global Hunger Index-2023, India has a level of hunger that is serious, according to a report based on the index.
  • The 2023 GHI score for the world is 18.3, considered moderate and less than one point below the world's 2015 GHI score of 19.1.
• India's neighbouring countries Pakistan (102th), Bangladesh (81st), Nepal (69th) and Sri Lanka (60th) have fared better than it in the index.
• South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara are the world regions with the highest hunger levels, with a GHI score of 27 each, indicating serious hunger.

Criticism of the GHI Report by the Union Government

• The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD) yet again questioned the GHI and called it a “flawed measure of hunger that doesn’t reflect India’s true position”.
• It said that data recorded on its Poshan Tracker portal showed child wasting prevalence of 7.2% among a total of 7.24 crore under-five-year-olds whose data was captured, whereas the GHI used a value of 18.7% for child wasting.
• The ministry further said two other indicators, namely stunting and wasting, are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI.
• The second objection the MoWCD reiterated was the alleged use of a telephone-based opinion poll to calculate undernourishment, one of the indicators used in GHI.
  • The GHI has maintained that it doesn’t use the poll, but relies on data from India’s Food Balance Sheet to calculate undernourishment.
• The Ministry argued that three out of the four indicators used for calculation of the index are related to the health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population.

Q1) What is the definition of Stunting?

Stunting is defined as low height-for-age. It is the result of chronic or recurrent undernutrition, usually associated with poverty, poor maternal health and nutrition, frequent illness and/or inappropriate feeding and care in early life. Stunting prevents children from reaching their physical and cognitive potential.

Q2) What is Malnutrition in simple words?

Malnutrition is a serious condition that happens when your diet does not contain the right amount of nutrients. It means "poor nutrition" and can refer to: undernutrition – not getting enough nutrients. overnutrition – getting more nutrients than needed.

Source: India ranks 111th on Global Hunger Index 2023; ‘erroneous measure of hunger’, says govt | Hindu