Global Hunger Index (GHI) and India

Global Hunger Index (GHI) and India

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger globally and by country and region. GHI Index is used to understand the countries hunger situation. The index is is created by IFPRI (The International Food Policy Research). IFPRI is founded in 1970, an agricultural research center, to improve the understanding of national agricultural and food policies to promote the adoption of innovations in agricultural technology.

GHI index raises awareness of regional and country difference hunger, show progress over time and help learn the success and failure in hunger reduction. The index is updated each year which highlights successes and failures in hunger reduction and provides insights into the drivers of hunger.  GHI takes into consideration equally weighted indicators in one index number on Undernourishment, Child Underweight and Child Mortality

India is ranked 2nd in the world number of children suffering from malnutrition.  The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world. Every day, 1,000 Indian children die because of diarrhea alone. According to the 1991 census of India, it has around 150 million children, constituting 17.5% of India's population, who are below the age of 6 years. (Source: Wiki).

India Indicators from GHI 2012

·         Prevalence of undernourishment in population (%): Ranked 19th as per year 2006-08 data

·         Prevalence of underweight in children under-five years (%): 43% as per year 2005-10 data

·         Under-five  Mortality rate (%):  43.5% as per year 2005-10 data (an increase in 1% over previous indicators of year 1999-2003)

Source: http://www.slideshare.net/ifpri/2012-global-hunger-index

Looking at indicators, needless to say, India falls under the top 23 alarming nations category.  

India’s latest GHI score is based partly on outdated data except child mortality data from 2010. India’s latest available nationally representative data on child underweight were collected in 2005–06.

Government of India has failed to monitor national trends in child under-nutrition for more than six years now so we would not know any progress or failure happened in last six years.

Over all Rank 65th across world (GHI takes into consideration equally weighted indicators in one index number on Undernourishment, Child Underweight and Child Mortality)

India has lagged behind in improving its GHI score despite strong economic growth. After a small increase between 1996 and 2001, India’s GHI score fell only slightly, and the latest GHI returned to about the 1996 level, as the above graph shows. This stagnation in GHI scores occurred during a period when India’s gross national income (GNI) per capita almost doubled, rising from about 1,460 to 2,850 constant 2005 international dollars between 1995–97 and 2008–10 (World Bank 2012).