Global Hunger Index 2023 [Latest India Ranking]

India’s ranking in the Global Hunger Index 2023 is 111 (slipped from the 2022 index of 107) out of 125 countries. The index is jointly released by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe every October. The Hunger Index measures countries’ performance on four component indicators – undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and child mortality. Read about the key findings of the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019 and India’s rankings for the IAS Exam.

The 2023 Global Hunger Index is the 18th edition of the Hunger Index (since 2006).

What is the Global Hunger Index?

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels. The Global Hunger Index aims to track hunger at the world, regional and country levels. GHI scores are based on the values of four component indicators:

Global Hunger Index Scoring

GHI ranks countries on a 100-point scale, 0 representing zero/no hunger. The GHI scores are based on four indicators. Taken together, the component indicators reflect deficiencies in calories as well as in micronutrients. Thus, the GHI reflects both aspects of hunger (undernutrition and malnutrition).

1. UNDERNOURISHMENT: the share of the population whose caloric intake is insufficient.
2. CHILD STUNTING: the share of children under the age of five who have low height for their age.
3. CHILD WASTING: the share of children under the age of five who have low weight for their height.
4. CHILD MORTALITY: the mortality rate of children under the age of five (a reflection of the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments).

Global Hunger Index Report is an annual report (peer-reviewed) published by Concern Worldwide of Ireland and Welthungerhilfe (a German non-profit organization). 

• Concern Worldwide is an international humanitarian organisation dedicated to tackling poverty and suffering in the world’s poorest countries.
• Welthungerhilfe is one of the largest private aid organisations in Germany, independent of politics and religion.

Global Hunger Index 2023

The 2023 Global Hunger Index gives India a rank of 111 out of 125 countries. This indicates a hunger severity level of ‘serious’ for the country. This also marks a fall from the previous year’s rank of 107 (2022).

• India’s GHI score is 28.7 on a 100-point scale where 0 is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.
• From 2000 to 2015, India made good strides in the GHI rank while from 2015, India has advanced on the GHI by only 0.5 points.
• The 2023 GHI score for the world is 18.3, which is considered moderate.
• Globally, the share of people who are undernourished has increased to 9.2%.
• The regions with the highest hunger levels in the world are South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Each region has a GHI score of 27, indicating ‘serious’ hunger.
• Latin America and the Caribbean is the only region in the world whose GHI scores have worsened between 2015 and 2023.
• China is among the top 20 countries that each have a GHI score of less than 5.
• The region with the lowest GHI score is Europe and Central Asia, whose score of 6.0 is considered ‘low’.
• According to the report, the fight against global hunger has stagnated because of multiple factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, climate change, etc.
• The Indian Government has rejected the 2023 GHI rank of 111 for India, just like it did for the previous two years, citing it “flawed measure of hunger that doesn’t reflect India’s true position”.
  • The GHI used the child wasting value of 18.7% from the National Family Health Survey 5 (NFHS) 2019-2021, whereas the government said that data recorded on its Poshan Tracker portal showed child wasting prevalence of 7.2% among a total of 7.24 crore under-five-year-olds whose data was captured.
  • The GHI responded by saying that it uses the same data sources for all countries to calculate the respective country scores.

Global Hunger Index 2022

• Global Progress in GHI 2022 is stagnant – Globally, the progress against hunger has largely stagnated in recent years, with a global score of 18.2 in 2022 as compared to 19.1 in 2014, there is only a slight improvement. However, the 2022 GHI score is still considered “moderate”.
• Causes for stagnation in this progress –
  • Conflicts among countries,
  • Climate change,
  • The economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic
  • Russia-Ukraine war, which has increased global food, fuel, and fertiliser prices and is expected to “worsen hunger in 2023 and beyond.
• Top performers in GHI 2022 – Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Chile, China and Croatia are the top five countries in GHI 2022.
• Worst Performers in GHI 2022 – Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Central African Republic and Yemen are the countries ranked at the bottom of the index.
• As per the data, there are 44 countries that currently have “serious” or “alarming” hunger levels.

India’s Performance in Global Hunger Index 2022

India ranks 107th out of 121 countries in the GHI 2022 rankings. With a score of 29.1, India has a level of hunger that is serious.

• India has slipped 6 positions from its 2021 rank of 101.
• According to the latest data, India has the highest child wasting rate of all countries covered in the GHI.
• India is ranked behind most of its neighbouring countries. Their ranks are given below:
  • Pakistan – 99
  • Sri Lanka – 64
  • Nepal – 81
  • Bangladesh – 84
• The only country in South Asia that performs worse than India on the index is Afghanistan with 109th rank.
• India has seen improvement in child stunting and child mortality between 2014 and 2022:
  • Child stunting has declined from 38.7% to 35.5%.
  • Child mortality has also dropped from 4.6% to 3.3%.
• India performance in undernourishment – Prevalence of undernourishment has also risen in the country from 14.6% in 2018-2020 to 16.3% in 2019-2021.
  • It implies that 224.3 million people in India (out of 828 million globally) are considered undernourished.
• India performance in child wasting – India’s child wasting rate (low weight for height), at 19.3%, is worse than the levels recorded in 2014 (15.1%) and even 2000 (17.15%).

Image source: https://www.globalhungerindex.org/

Government of India’s Response to India’s GHI 2022 Ranking

The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development issued a criticism of the latest GHI ranking (2022) in which India’s rank was lowered to 107, saying that, ‘consistent effort is yet again visible to taint India’s image as a Nation that does not fulfill the food security and nutritional requirements of its population’.

• The government said that the index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. The report is not only disconnected from ground reality but also chooses to deliberately ignore efforts made by the Government to ensure food Security for the population, especially during the Covid Pandemic.

Measures by Government to eradicate hunger or malnutrition –

1. Eat Right India movement by Food Safety and Security Authority of India – FASSAI.
2. Poshan Abhiyan also known as National Nutrition Mission.
3. Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana – a flagship maternity benefits programme of the Government of India. Cash benefits are provided to pregnant women in their bank account directly to meet enhanced nutritional needs and partially compensate for wage loss.
4. National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 – the Act covers almost two-thirds of the population in order to provide them with heavily subsidised foodgrains. The National Food Security Act of 2013 (NFSA) is being implemented throughout all of India’s States and UTs.

Global Hunger Index 2021

India ranks 101st out of 116 countries in the GHI 2021 rankings. With a score of 27.5, India has a level of hunger that is ‘serious’.

• India has slipped 7 positions from its 2020 rank of 94.
• India is ranked behind most of its neighbouring countries. Their ranks are given below:
  • Pakistan – 92
  • Sri Lanka – 65
  • Nepal – 76
  • Bangladesh – 76
• There are only 15 countries that are ranked below India in the 2021 index.
• According to the latest data, India has the highest rate of child wasting among all the countries in the index.
• However, India has shown improvement in other indicators such as the under-5 mortality rate, prevalence of stunting among children and prevalence of undernourishment owing to inadequate food.

Government of India’s Response to India’s GHI 2021 Ranking

The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development issued a criticism of the latest GHI ranking (2021) in which India’s rank was lowered to 101, saying that the agencies did not do their ‘due diligence’ before releasing the report.

• The government has argued that the estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) regarding the proportion of the undernourished population were devoid of “ground reality and facts.”
• It also called the methodology used by FAO “unscientific” and alleged there was no methodology to measure undernourishment.

Read more about this development in CNA dated 18 Oct 2021 under editorial ‘Alarming hunger or statistical artefact’.

Global Hunger Index 2020

Salient Points:

1. Worldwide hunger is 18.2 (moderate) down from 2000 level of 28.2 (serious)
2. How many are undernourished? – Nearly 690 million people
3. How many children are suffering from stunting? – 144 million children
4. How many children suffer from wasting? – 47 million
5. What was the child mortality in 2018? – 5.3 million children died before they turned five.
6. Which region has the highest hunger and undernutrition levels – Africa (south of Sahara) and South Asia  — Desert Locust, Covid-19 and following economic challenges are factors for food and nutrition insecurity for millions of people but the impact of the pandemic hasn’t been accounted for in 2020 Global Hunger Index.
7. Which countries show alarming levels of hunger? – Chad, Timor-Leste and Madagascar
8. Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger is difficult to achieve by 2030- Around 37 countries are expected to fall short to even reach low hunger by 2030.

India’s Performance in GHI 2020

1. India has a ‘serious’ hunger level.
2. India’s score in 2020 GHI is 27.2.
3. The ranks of some of India’s neighbours in the 2020 Global Hunger Index are:
   • Nepal – 73
   • Pakistan – 88
   • Bangladesh – 75
   • Afghanistan – 99
4. India has improved significantly w.r.t the child stunting levels.
5. India’s performance on the GHI’s indicators:
   • Undernourishment – 14 percent of India’s total population is undernourished.
   • Child Wasting – 17.3 percent of children are reported to be wasted.
   • Child Stunting – 34.7 percent of children are reported to be stunted which was 54 percent in 2000.
   • Child mortality – 3.7 percent of children died before the age of five.

Read about the Important Government Schemes in India at the linked article.

India’s Rank on Global Hunger Index 2018-2021

The table below mentions India’s performance in the last three years in the Global Hunger Index.

Global Hunger Index 2019

The Global Hunger Index 2019 report mentioned a rise of 37 million in the number of hungry people as compared to 2015. 

Furthermore, the hunger level in multiple countries still hasn’t reduced or has got higher than 2010 and approximately 45 counties are set to fail to achieve ‘low’ levels of hunger by 2030.

• For the year 2019, India has ranked 102nd amongst the 117 that were mapped for the Global Hunger Index.
• With a score of 30.3 on the Hunger Index Scale, India is one of the 47 countries categorized with “Serious” levels of Hunger.
• Compared to the 2018 GHI report where India was ranked 103rd amongst the 119 countries that were mapped, the situation hasn’t improved in the country.

Why is India ranked Serious on the Global Hunger Index?

The Global Hunger Index 2019 report also mentioned that the Child Wasting rate in the country was extremely high at 20.8% which is higher than all other countries. 

• The share of wasting among children in India marked a steep rise from 16.5% in the 2008-2012 period to 20.8% in 2014-2018.
• According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), child wasting is a strong predictor of mortality among children (under 5 years of age).

India and Other Countries on the Global Hunger Index

• India is behind every other country except Afghanistan amongst the South Asian countries.
• Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan (in that order) are all ahead of India.
• 17 countries including China, Belarus and Turkey have the top rank in Global Hunger Index 2020, with a score less than 5.

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Multiple Choice Question

Consider the following statements

1. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) scores are based on a formula that captures three dimensions of hunger—insufficient caloric intake, child undernutrition, and child mortality
2. South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara have the highest regional 2019 GHI scores in the world, at 29.3 and 28.4, respectively. These scores indicate serious levels of hunger according to the GHI Severity Scale.
3. In Africa South of the Sahara, the region’s high GHI score is driven up by its undernourishment and child mortality rates, which are the highest of any region, while its child stunting rate is nearly as high as that of South Asia.
4. Recent studies show that higher CO2 concentrations reduce the protein, zinc, and iron content of crops. 

Choose the correct answer from the below-given options

A) None of the above-given statements are true.

B) All the above-given statements are true. 

C) Only options 1 and 4 are true.

D) Only options 1 and 3 are true.

Answer: B

Global Hunger Index 2023:- Download PDF Here

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