The Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2023 ranked India in the 111th position among the 125 countries with a score of 28.7, as per a report released on Thursday (Oct 12). Reacting to the report, India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development called the rankings as “flawed”, adding that they failed to depict the true position of India.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka were ranked at 102nd, 81st, 69th, and 60th respectively by the GHI. In 2022, India was placed at the rank of 107 out of 121.
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“The GHI continues to be a flawed measure of hunger and does not reflect India’s true position. The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. Three out of the four indicators used for the calculation of the index are related to the health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population. The fourth and most important indicator Proportion of Undernourished population (PoU) is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3,000,” said the ministry, in a statement.
The highest regional hunger levels were recorded by South Asia and Africa south of the Sahara as the two had a GHI score of 27.
The report, prepared by German NGO Welt Hunger Hilfe and Irish NGO Concern Worldwide, claimed that the child wasting rate of India was 18.7 per cent, which is the highest on the global level and signalled acute undernutrition.
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Child-wasting figures consistently under 7.2%: India
Wasting is measured on the basis of the children’s weight relative to their height. The undernourishment rate in India has been recorded at 16.6 per cent while the country’s under-five mortality rate was 3.1 per cent.
The Indian government, while pointing towards its Poshan Tracker, stated that child-wasting figures have been consistently under 7.2 per cent, which contrasts the GHI’s 18.7 per cent.
The Global Hunger Index is a tool tracking and measuring hunger comprehensively at regional, national and global levels. According to the latest report, the highest hunger levels have been recorded in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, with scores indicating ‘serious’ hunger.
The 2023 Global Hunger Index further showed that even after extensive efforts, the progress made against hunger worldwide remains largely at a standstill.
“We are now living with a series of concurrent and long-term crises that will continue to fuel global humanitarian needs. This is the humanitarian community’s new reality — our new normal — and we will be dealing with the fallout for years to come,” said the head of the World Food Programme, recently.
(With inputs from agencies)
