Why in news? India ranks 111 out of 125 countries in Global Hunger Index

Highlights:

• India ranked 107th out of 121 countries in 2022.
• South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara are the world regions with the highest hunger levels, with a GHI score of 27 each, indicating serious hunger.

What are the major highlights of the report?

• According to a report, India has a level of hunger that is serious, based on the index.
• The country reported the highest child wasting rate at 18.7 per cent.
• India’s neighbouring countries Pakistan (102th), Bangladesh (81st), Nepal (69th) and Sri Lanka (60th) have fared better than it in the index.
• While the rate of undernourishment in India stood at 16.6 percent and under-five mortality at 3.1 percent, the prevalence of anaemia in women aged between 15 and 24 years stood at 58.1 percent.

Why the Index was cited as flawed methodology by India?

• Three out of the four indicators used for 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 (PoU) population’ is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3,000
• Stunting and wasting are the outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI.

According to Ministry of Women and Child Development

• Since April 2023, the measurement data of children under five years uploaded on the Poshan Tracker has consistently increased
• The percentage of child wasting, as seen on the Poshan Tracker, has been consistently below 7.2 per cent, month-on-month, as compared to the value of 18.7 per cent used for child wasting in the Index.
• There is hardly any evidence that the fourth indicator — child mortality — is an outcome of hunger

About the report

• The report is prepared by German NGO Welt Hunger Hilfe and Irish NGO Concern Worldwide
• It is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional and national levels
• GHI scores are based on the values of four component indicators – Undernourishment, Child stunning , child wasting and child mortality
• Countries are divided into five categories of hunger on the basis of their score which are ‘low’, ‘moderate’, ’serious’, ‘alarming’ and ‘extremely alarming’
• Based on the values of the four indicators ,a GHI score is calculated on a 100-point reflects severity of hunger and zero with no hunger