India slips to 107th position in Global Hunger Index; level ‘serious’

India this year slipped to the 107th position in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2022 from the 101st position in 2021. The GHI report termed the level of hunger in India as ‘serious. ‘India’s child wasting rate was recorded at 19.3 per cent, being the highest in the world. With a score of 28.2, India is now behind its neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal in the GHI Index of 121 nations, the GHI website, which tracks the hunger and malnutrition, said on Saturday. According to the GHI website, China, Turkey, Kuwait and 14 other nations share the top spot with the GHI score of less than five.

“India’s child wasting rate, at 19.3 per cent, is the highest of any country in the world and drives up the region’s average owing to India’s large population,” it said.

The Global Hunger Index measure and tracks hunger wordlwide and by region and country. Published by Concern Worldwide annually, the report has been jointly prepared by Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and German organisation Welt Hunger Hilfe. The GHI index is based on four factors — under-nourishment, wasting (low weight for height), stunting (low height for age) and under-five mortality.

While India’s performance since 2014 has improved significantly on stunting and infant mortality, the wasting and undernourishment graphs have seen a small upward trend, the GHI data showed.

Child wasting which is a strong predictor of mortality among children under five years of age also worsened from 15.1 per cent in 2012-16 to 19.3 per cent in 2017-21.

India, however, noted improvement in two parameters of child stunting from 38.7 per cent in 2012-16 to 35.5 per cent in 2017-21 and child mortality from 4.6 per cent in 2014 to 3.3 per cent in 2020.

“The example of India shows the importance of considering the subnational context when designing programs and policies to target child stunting. Researchers investigated the factors that contributed to a decline in stunting in four Indian states between 2006 and 2016: Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Odisha, and Tamil Nadu,” the report said.

The report warned that the situation is expected to deteriorate further as global crises overlap. “Possible solutions and the scale of investment required are known and quantified. Rather, the problem lies in policy implementation and the lack of political will in the world,” it said. (With PTI inputs)