Global Hunger Index 2022: India slips down to 107th rank from 101 in 2021

India's position drops on Global Hunger Index 2022 dropped to 107th position out of the 123 countries from the earlier ranking of 101, 2022 Global Hunger Index report shows.

In 2021, India ranked 101 out of 116 countries. Prior to that in 2020, the country use to rank at 94th position among 107 nations. 

With a score of 29.1, India has a level of hunger that is serious, the report said. However, seeing the past trends, this score has slightly improved compared to 28.2 in 2014, 36.4 in 2007 and 38.8 in 2000.

As per the report, the country's child wasting rate is at 19.3 percent, is the highest of any country in the world and drives up the region’s average owing to India’s large population. 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, Pakistan, and Afghanistan each have child stunting rates between 35 and 38 percent, with Afghanistan’s rate being the highest in the region, it showed.

Undernourishment prevalence rose in India from 14.6 per cent in 2018-2020 to 16.3 per cent in 2019-2021. This translates into 224.3 million people in India being undernourished out of the total 828 million people globally, it said.

Speaking about India's neighbouring countries, the country has scored poorer that Sri Lanka, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka which faced its worst economic crisis in nearly 70 years, which resulted in an acute shortage of essential items like food, medicine, cooking gas and fuel across the island nation. On the GHI 2022, Sri Lanka ranks at 64th. Other countries like Pakistan ranks at 99th, Nepal at 81st and Bangladesh at 84th. 

South Asia, the region with the world's highest hunger level, has the highest child stunting rate and by far the highest child wasting rate in the world, the report said.

Speaking about the top scorers in the GHI 2022, 17 countries have been collectively ranked between 1 and 17 with a score of less than 5. The top 17 countries are Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Chile, China, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey and Uruguay.

GHI score is calculated on four indicators -- undernourishment; child wasting, the share of children under the age of five who are wasted-- who have low weight for their height reflecting acute undernutrition); child stunting, children under the age of five who have low height for their age reflecting chronic undernutrition; and child mortality -- the mortality rate of children under the age of five.

As per the report, the data used for the indicators have been sourced various UN and other multilateral agencies, including Unicef, World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).