India Ranks Below Pakistan At 107th Position In Global Hunger Index 2022

New Delhi: India dropped six spots on the Global Hunger Index 2022, landing in position 107 out of 121 nations. With the exception of Afghanistan, all other south Asian nations are placed below India. The authors of the Global Hunger Index, European NGOs Concern Worldwide, and Welthungerhilfe, have classified the level of hunger as “severe” with a score of 29.1.

The values of four component indicators—undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality—are used to calculate GHI scores. Child stunting reflects the percentage of children under the age of five who have low heights for their ages, showing chronic undernutrition, whereas undernourishment represents the percentage of the population with insufficient caloric intake. Child wasting is a sign of severe undernutrition in kids under five who are underweight for their height.

According to the paper, the information utilised for the indicators was gathered from a number of UN and other multilateral organisations, including UNICEF, the World Bank, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Meanwhile, our neighbouring nations- Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar have respective rankings of 99, 64, 84, 81, and 71, all of which are higher than India. Between 1 and 17 countries have received a combined ranking with a score of less than five.

However, Zambia, Afghanistan, Timor-Leste, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Lesotho, Liberia, Niger, Haiti, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Central African Republic, Yemen, and other nations are rated below India on the Global Hunger Index. According to the research, rankings for 15 nations, including Guinea, Mozambique, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria, could not be calculated due to a lack of data.

It is pertinent to say here that, the central government had disapproved of the Global Hunger Index report from the previous year, claiming that the publishing companies had not exercised “due diligence.”

“It is shocking to find that the Global Hunger Report 20201 has lowered the rank of India on the basis of FAO estimate on the proportion of the undernourished population, which is found to be devoid of ground reality and facts and suffers from serious methodological issues. The publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, Concern Worldwide, and Welt Hunger Hilfe, have not done their due diligence before releasing the report,” a statement released by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development read.