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Global Hunger Index

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October 18, 2018

Why in news?

Global Hunger Index prepared by Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide has been released recently.

What is the report based on?

  • The report defines “hunger” by using four specific parameters –
  1. prevalence of undernourishment
  2. child stunting (low height compared to their age) < Age 5
  3. child wasting (low weight for their age) < Age 5
  4. Under-5 child mortality i.e who did not live to be five-years-old.
  • The higher the score of a country on the list, the lower it was ranked.

What does the report say?

  • The world has made gradual, long-term progress in reducing overall hunger, but there is an uneven progress.
  • GHI scores for South Asia and Africa south of the Sahara reflect serious levels of hunger.
  • Areas of severe hunger and undernutrition stubbornly persist which reflects the human misery for millions.
  • Since the number of forcibly displaced people is on the rise, and hunger is often both a cause and a consequence of displacement, co-ordinated actions needs to be taken by international community, national governments, and civil society.
  • Around 124 million people suffer acute hunger in the world.
  • About 151 million children are stunted and 51 million children are wasted across the globe.
  • Hard-won gains are being further threatened by conflict, climate change, poor governance, and a host of other challenges.
  • It further warned that at least 50 nations all over the globe were on a path to miss their SDG target of achieving low-levels of hunger by the year 2030.

What is the case with India?

  • India has been ranked at the 103rd position among 119 countries and is among the 45 countries that have "serious levels of hunger".
  • The proportion of undernourished population in India has come down from 18.2% to 14.8%.
  • The prevalence of stunting in children below the age of five has gone down sharply from 54.2% to 38.4%.
  • The Under-5 child mortality rate has declined from 9.2% to 4.3%.
  • India is ranked below many of its neighbouring countries, including China (25), Nepal (72), Myanmar (68), Sri Lanka (67) and Bangladesh (86).

What are the concerns?

  • India continues to stay in the “serious” category of the GHI.
  • There are still way too many children suffering from stunting, which reflects chronic undernourishment.
  • The biggest worry is the level of wasting in Indian children, which has actually gone up over these years from 17.1% to 21%.
  • Wasting reflects acute malnutrition and the fact that it has gone up sharply in the past 5 to 10 yearsis a massive blot on India’s growth story.
  • As the report claimed that children aged 0-5 months were at the most risk of child wasting, attention to birth outcomes and breastfeeding should be an important priority for India.
  • There were numerous policy attempts were made both at the central and state levels such as hunger missions launched by Maharashtra to directly attack the problem of widespread hunger.
  • This is also coincided with the rights-based approach where mid-day meals and nutrition of mothers were also improved.
  • Thus the solution lies in adequately distributing nutritious food and health care services to children and lactating mothers.
  • Though the government was working to achieve zero hunger by 2030, it focusses on higher farm output as a tool to achieve it.
  • But, as various researchers have shown, child undernourishment does not go away by merely having more food grain output.
  • It is the distribution, along with timely availability of food that matters.

What does the report recommend?

  • The international community should focus resources and attention on the regions of the world where the majority of displaced people are located.
  • It should also provide stronger political and humanitarian support to internally displaced people.
  • Prioritized actions to address the special vulnerabilities and challenges of women and girls should be taken.
  • Certain long-term solutions, like strengthening the resilience of displaced populations by providing access to education and training, employment, healthcare, agricultural land, and markets have also been proposed.

 

Source: Business Standard

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