Global Hunger Index 2017

The 2017 Global Hunger Index has ranked India 100 among 119 countries, marking a 55- point fall over the past three years and prompting nutrition analysts to highlight concerns that economic growth does not automatically guarantee food security.

About the Index

• Published by the International Food Policy Research Institute, Concern Worldwide, an Irish aid agency, and Welthungerhilfe, a German private aid organisation, the Global Hunger Index tracks hunger worldwide.
• The Global Hunger Index is calculated based on the proportion of the population that is undernourished; prevalence of wasting and stunting among children below the age of five; and the under-five mortality rate.

India’s Performance in Comparison with Other Countries

• India’s position on the index — where countries are ranked on the basis of undernourishment, child mortality, child wasting and child stunting — has fallen from 55 among 76 countries in 2014 to 80 among 104 countries in 2015 and to 97 among 118 countries last year.
• India has the third highest score in all of Asia -- only Afghanistan and Pakistan are ranked worse.
• An increase in GHI indicates the worsening of a country’s hunger situation.
• At 31.4, India’s 2017 GHI score is at the high end of the ‘serious’ category, and one of the main factors pushing South Asia to the category of worst performing region this year, followed closely by Africa South of the Sahara.
• Among India’s neighbouring countries, China ranks the highest at 29; Nepal has been ranked 72, Myanmar 77, Sri Lanka 84, Bangladesh 88, Pakistan 106 and Afghanistan 107.

Child Wasting

• More than a fifth of Indian children aged below five weighed too little for their height and over a third were too short for their age.
• As of 2015-16, more than a fifth (21%) of children suffer from wasting (low-weight-for-height) -- up from 20% in 2005-2006.
• Only three other nations -- Djibouti, Sri Lanka and South Sudan -- show child wasting above 20%this year.
• While the country has progressed on three of the four indicators over the past decade, the proportion of Indian children suffering from wasting related to undernourishment has actually increased from 20% a decade ago to about 21% over the past three years.

Why does India always Score Poorly on the Global Hunger Index?

• The country’s hunger problem is driven by high child malnutrition, and underlines the need for stronger commitment to the social sector.
• Despite a massive scaleup of national nutrition- focused programmes, drought and structural deficiencies have left large numbers of poor in India at risk of malnourishment.
• Structural deficiencies imply that the government is allocating resources but programmes are poorly implemented.
• That should have been a pressing question for the country’s policymakers. The Centre and the states do have several schemes to improve the nutritional status of people in the country. But confronting the country’s nutritional problems has never acquired adequate urgency.
• The report does mention that India has scaled up its Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme and the National Health Mission but also notes that they are yet to achieve adequate coverage.
• Many of India’s social welfare schemes — including those related to food security —have been dogged by challenges related to identifying and reaching targeted groups.
• In the last three years, the government has claimed that it is trying to resolve this conundrum by linking targeted welfare schemes to instruments such as Aadhaar.
• The continued poor performance in the Global Hunger Index should make the government introspect the shortcomings of this endeavour.

There has been Progress

• The study of the period between 2006 and 2016 reveals that, as a proportion, stunting among children has declined; anaemia among women of reproductive age has declined; low birth weight has declined; exclusive breastfeeding has improved; but wasting among children has worsened.
• None of the states in India reached acceptable levels of wasting or underweight in 2016, based on the WHO cut-off rates for public health significance.
• The reason for both the improvement and the deterioration is food — its availability, affordability and accessibility. People must have adequate food, everything else is secondary. India produces enough food for its people, but not all people get enough food to eat.
• That is the paradox. While many interventions were made — some achieved moderate success — the most decisive intervention was the passing of the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA).