Global Hunger Index 2023

Global Hunger Index 2023

Why In News ?

India is ranked 111th out of 125 countries in the recently released Global Hunger Index 2023, which the government has termed as “false and malicious”.

In terms of Global Hunger Index (GHI):

In general view, starvation refers to the problems caused by lack of food. However, the GHI does not measure hunger on this basis alone, rather it considers the multidimensional nature of hunger.

For this GHI considers four bases:

Undernutrition: The portion of the population whose calorie intake is inadequate. It makes up 1/3 of the GHI score.
Child stunting: The share of children under 5 years of age who are short for their age, reflecting severe undernutrition. It constitutes 1/6 of the GHI score.
Child wasting: The share of children under 5 years of age who are underweight for their height, indicating acute undernutrition. This also constitutes 1/6 of the GHI score.
Child mortality: The share of children who die before the age of five, reflecting a deadly combination of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments. It makes up 1/3 of the GHI score.
Countries are ranked on a 100-point scale, with 0 and 100 being the best and worst possible scores, respectively.

Results and implications of the Global Hunger Index:

Hunger is one of the major problems in the world and hence it is one of the most important challenges.
Hunger and undernutrition create a vicious cycle, which is often “passed down” from generation to generation.
Children of poor parents are often born with low birth weight and have lower resistance to disease; They grow up in conditions that impair their intellectual abilities throughout their lives.
Factors contributing to the high global hunger index have been identified as: low income and poverty, war and violent conflict, general lack of freedom, low status of women, and poorly targeted and delivered health and nutrition programs.

Important Point:

India ranks 111th out of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index-2023 and the country has the highest wasting rate among children (18.7 %).
India was ranked 107th out of 121 countries in the Global Hunger Index-2022.
According to a report based on the index, the level of hunger in India is serious with a score of 28.7 in the Global Hunger Index-2023.
India’s neighboring countries Pakistan (102), Bangladesh (81), Nepal (69) and Sri Lanka (60) have performed better in the index.
South Asia and the southern countries of the African continent are the regions with the highest hunger levels in the world, each with a GHI score of 27, indicating severe hunger.

Reasons for criticism of GHI 2023 by the Government of India:

The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD) once again questioned the GHI, calling it a “flawed measure of hunger, which does not reflect the actual situation in India”.
It said data recorded on its nutrition tracker portal showed that the prevalence of child wasting among a total of 7.24 crore children under five years of age was 7.2%, while the GHI reported a value of 18.7% for child wasting.
The Ministry further said that the two other indicators, stunting and wasting, are the result of a complex interaction of several other factors such as access to sanitation, genetics, environment and food intake, apart from hunger, which are considered as causative/consequence factors for stunting and wasting. Is taken in.
The GHI has stated that it does not use surveys, but instead relies on data from India’s food balance sheet to calculate undernutrition.
The ministry argued that three of the four indicators used to calculate the index relate to children’s health and may not represent the entire population.

Major initiatives taken by the government to tackle hunger: