Global Hunger Index 2024 places India in ‘serious’ category with rank of 105

India has been placed in the “serious” category of the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2024 report, ranking 105th among 127 countries.

The GHI is a tool used by international humanitarian agencies to measure and track hunger levels, with GHI scores based on under-nourishment and child mortality indicators.

The 2024 report, now in its 19th edition, was published this week by Irish humanitarian organisation Concern Worldwide and German aid agency Welthungerhilfe to highlight that hunger levels will remain high in many of the world’s poorest countries for several decades in the absence of more progress in measures to tackle the issue.

Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka fare better

India is among 42 countries in the “serious” category, alongside Pakistan and Afghanistan, with other South Asian neighbours, such as Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, listed under the “moderate” category with better GHI scores.

“With a score of 27.3 in the 2024 Global Hunger Index, India has a level of hunger that is serious,” reads the index entry.

In 2023, India was ranked 111th, while in 2022, India was ranked 107th. In 2021, it was placed 101st, a sharp fall from 94th in 2020.

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Four indicators

India’s GHI score is based on the values of four component indicators: 13.7 per cent of the population is undernourished, 35.5 per cent of children under five are stunted with 18.7 per cent of them being wasted, and 2.9 per cent of children die before their fifth birthday, the report notes.

For the purpose of the index, “undernourishment” is defined as the share of the population with insufficient caloric intake, “stunted” as the share of children under five who have low height for their age to reflect “chronic” undernutrition, “wasting” as the share of children under five who have low weight for their height due to “acute” undernutrition, and “mortality” refers to the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments.

Based on the values of these four indicators, a GHI score is calculated for each country on a 100-point scale reflecting the severity of hunger, where 0 is the best possible score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.

Chances of Zero Hunger by 2030 bleak

Based on its analysis, the report concludes the chances of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030 are looking very unlikely.

“Despite the international community’s repeated emphasis on the importance of the right to adequate food, there remains a troubling disparity between the standards established and the reality that in many parts of the world the right to food is being blatantly disregarded,” the report concludes.

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Countries in alarming category

Globally, around 733 million people face hunger each day due to a lack of access to a sufficient amount of food, while about 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet.

Some of the African nations are on the extreme ends of the GHI spectrum under the “alarming” category, with wars in Gaza and Sudan being highlighted as having led to exceptional food crises.

Conflict and civil strife are also generating food crises elsewhere, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Mali and Syria, it added.

(With agency inputs)