India has dropped to 101st place out of 116 nations in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2021, down from 94th place in 2020, and is now behind Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
On Thursday, the website of the Global Hunger Index, which measures hunger and malnutrition, announced that eighteen countries, including China, Brazil, and Kuwait, shared the top spot with a GHI score of less than five.
Alarming
The extent of hunger in India, according to the report, is “alarming.” It was written by Concern Worldwide, an Irish charity organization, and Welt Hunger Hilfe, a German organization.
India was rated 94th out of 107 countries in 2020. With 116 countries participating, it has slipped to 101st place. India’s GHI score has likewise slowed, dropping from 38.8 in 2000 to a range of 28.8 to 27.5 between 2012 and 2021.
GHI Score
Undernourishment, child wasting (the share of children under the age of five who are wasted, i.e. have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition), child stunting (children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition), and child mortality are the four indicators used to calculate the GHI score (the mortality rate of children under the age of five).
According to the survey, wasting among children in India increased from 17.1 percent in 1998-2002 to 17.3 percent in 2016-2020.
“People have been severely hit by COVID-19 and by pandemic-related restrictions in India, the country with the highest child wasting rate worldwide,” the report said.
Neighbouring countries
According to the survey, neighboring nations such as Nepal (76), Bangladesh (76), Myanmar (71), and Pakistan (92) are also in the ‘alarming’ hunger category but have done a better job of feeding their citizens than India.
Other indices, such as the under-5 mortality rate, the incidence of stunting among children, and the prevalence of undernourishment due to insufficient food, have improved in India, according to the research.
The fight against hunger
The campaign against hunger, according to the report, is dangerously off track. According to current GHI forecasts, by 2030, the globe as a whole – and 47 nations in particular – will have failed to attain a low level of hunger.
Food security is under threat on numerous fronts, according to the report, with growing violence, weather extremes linked to global climate change, and the economic and health problems posed by the COVID19 pandemic all contributing to hunger.
“Inequality — between regions, countries, districts, and communities — is pervasive and, (if) left unchecked, will keep the world from achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) mandate to leave no one behind,” the report said.
Furthermore, the report stated that being optimistic in 2021 will be tough because the forces driving hunger already outnumber good intentions and aspirational ambitions.
Conflict, climate change, and COVID-19 are three of the most potent and destructive of these forces, according to the report, and they threaten to wipe out whatever progress made against hunger in recent years.
What is the Hunger Index?
The global hunger index measures three aspects of hunger: insufficient food availability, deficiencies in children’s nutritional status, and child mortality (which is, to a large extent, attributable to undernutrition).
As a result, the index includes three equally weighted indicators: FAO’s estimate of the proportion of people who are food energy deficient; WHO’s estimate of the prevalence of underweight in children under the age of five; and UNICEF’s estimate of the mortality rate of children under the age of five.
A regression study of the global hunger index on GNI per capita is used to find nations that are significantly better or worse off in terms of hunger and undernutrition than their GNI per capita would suggest.
Countries are ranked on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 representing the greatest possible score and 100 representing the lowest possible score, respectively.
