The annual Global Hunger Index published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe ranked India at 94th among the 107 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2020. With a score of 27.2/100, India falls in the ‘serious’ hunger category.
The GHI is an annual peer-reviewed publication aims to track hunger at global, regional and national levels. GHI scores are calculated every year to assess progress and setbacks in combating hunger. GHI uses four parameters to calculate the index values and these parameters use information from World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank and United Nations (UN). The parameters are:
- Level of undernourishment in a county: This means the share of the total population of a country which has insufficient calorie intake.
- Child mortality rate: Death of children under the age of five years due to inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments.
- Child wasting: The share of children under the age of five having low weight for their height, reflecting acute under nutrition.
- Child stunting: The share of children who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic under nutrition.
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 and scores 0–9.9–low severity, 10–19.9–moderate, 20–34.9—serious, >35—extremely alarming. Each country’s GHI score is classified by severity, from ‘low’ to ‘extremely alarming’. These classifications of any country can be compared over time, however the rankings cannot be compared as the number of countries included each year differs.
India’s GHI of 27.2 in 2020 can be seen as a steady improvement as compared to 38.9 in 2000, 37.5 in 2006, 32.2 in 2010, 29.3 in 2012, 31.1 in 2018 and 30.3 in 2019. Though there is an improvement from the previous years, still the rate is alarming.
India falls in the ‘serious’ category in GHI 2020 but has shown improvement in the undernourishment and child mortality parameters from yesteryears. The report said that 14 per cent of our country’s population is ‘undernourished’, ‘child mortality’ rate is 3.7 per cent, child wasting is 37.4 per cent and child stunting is at 17.3 per cent.
It is found that poor sanitation, leading to diarrhoea, is one of the major cause of child wasting and stunting. Food insecurity, poor sanitation, inadequate housing, limited access to healthcare has to be looked into for improving India’s GHI. The Integrated Child Development Services programme aims to provide food, primary healthcare and immunisation services to young children and mothers to boost the GHI.
Though the neighbouring countries of India including Pakistan (88th), Bangladesh (75th), Myanmar (78th) too are in ‘serious’ category, countries including Nepal (73rd) and Sri Lanka (64th) were in ‘moderate’ category. Only 13 countries have scores worse than India. China, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, Cuba and Kuwait shared the top ranks with GHI scores less than five.
The GHI 2020 report has mentioned that the impact of COVID 19 is not reflected in its report as the situation is already worrying in many contexts and is likely to worsen in the years to come.