GLOBAL HUNGER INDEX

GLOBAL HUNGER INDEX

WHY IN NEWS?

• Recently, Union minister for women and child development, Smriti Irani, recently dismissed India’s abysmal ranking on the Global Hunger Index (GHI).

MORE ABOUT THE NEWS:

• In the Global Hunger Index 2023, India ranked 111^th out of 125 countries, indicating a serious level of hunger.
• Neighboring countries, such as Pakistan (102^nd), Bangladesh (81^st), Nepal (69^th), and Sri Lanka (60^th), scored better than India.

ABOUT GHI:

• The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and country levels.
• The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) calculates GHI scores each year to assess progress, or the lack thereof, in combating hunger.
• The GHI is designed to raise awareness and understanding of the struggle against hunger.

METHODOLOGY:

• The countries analyzed can be categorized according to whether their hunger level is extremely alarming, alarming, serious, moderate or low. The higher the value, the higher the severity of hunger in the country.
• Each country’s GHI score is calculated based on a formula that combines four indicators that together capture the multidimensional nature of hunger:
• Undernourishment: the share of the population whose caloric intake is insufficient;
• Child stunting: the share of children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition;
• Child wasting: the share of children under the age of five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition; and
• Child mortality: the share of children who die before their fifth birthday, reflecting in part the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy
• The indicators included in the GHI formula reflect caloric deficiencies as well as poor nutrition.
• The undernourishment indicator captures the food access situation of the population as a whole, while the indicators specific to children reflect the nutrition status within a particularly vulnerable subset of the population for whom a lack of dietary energy, protein, and/or micronutrients (essential vitamins and minerals) leads to a high risk of illness, poor physical and cognitive development, and death.
• The inclusion of both child wasting and child stunting allows the GHI to document both acute and chronic undernutrition.
• By combining multiple indicators, the index minimizes the effects of random measurement errors.

COUNTRIES INCLUDED IN GHI:

• Inclusion in the GHI is determined based on prevalence of undernourishment and child mortality data dating back to 2000.
• Countries with values above the “very low” threshold for one or both of these indicators since 2000 are included in the GHI.
• Specifically, countries are included if the prevalence of undernourishment was at or above 5.0 percent and/or if the child mortality rate was at or above 1.0 percent for any year since 2000.

SYLLABUS: PRELIMS, CURRENT AFFAIRS