UPSC Articles
Global Hunger Index ranks India at 101 out of 116 countries
Part of: Prelims and GS I – Society
Context The Global Hunger Index ranked India at 101st out of a total 116 countries.
- India is also among the 31 countries where hunger has been identified as serious.
- India ranked 94 among 107 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) released last year.
Key takeaways
- Only 15 countries fare worse than India which includes countries like Papua New Guinea (102), Afghanistan (103), Nigeria (103), Congo (105), Mozambique (106), Sierra Leone (106), Timor-Leste (108), etc.
- India is also behind most of the neighbouring countries. Pakistan was placed at 92 rank, Nepal at 76 and Bangladesh also at 76.
- Somalia has the highest level of hunger according to the 2021 GHI ranking
- Current projections based on the Global Hunger Index (GHI) show that the world as a whole — and 47 countries in particular — will fail to achieve even low hunger by 2030.
- After decades of decline, the global prevalence of undernourishment is increasing. This shift may be an indication of reversals in other measures of hunger.
What is the Global Hunger Index?
- The GHI is an annual peer-reviewed publication by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.
- It aims to track hunger at global, regional and national levels.
- It uses four parameters to calculate its scores –
- Undernourishment
- child wasting
- child stunting and
- child mortality.
- Information from the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the United Nations are taken to calculate these parameters.
- All these international organisations draw from national data, which, in India’s case, includes the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS).