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In a pat on the back for the erstwhile UPA Government’s flagship programmes, the Global Hunger Index 2014 (GHI) has noted a significant improvement in the levels of hunger in India, especially among children, between 2005-06 and 2013-14.
Overall, however, two billion people in the developing world are still under-nourished and suffer from ‘hidden hunger’, with the situation “alarming” in 14 countries, even as the deadline for the 2015 Millennium Development Goals nears.
This is despite the level of hunger in developing countries falling by 39 per cent since 1990, says a report released on Monday by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe, a German non-profit, and Concern Worldwide, an Irish non-profit.
India has made a marked improvement in the GHI 2014 and no longer ranks second-to-last in the world on underweight in children. It has moved into the 120th spot among 128 countries, with the prevalence of underweight in children declining by almost 13 percentage points between 2005-2006 and 2013-2014.
“India improved its score following government roll-out and expansion of several programmes that target causes of undernutrition, including the Integrated Child Development Services programme and the National Rural Health Mission. The Supreme Court also appointed a commission to monitor the delivery of food-based programmes,” says the report, which has been measuring global hunger for the past nine years.
The report also notes the contribution of “indirect factors” that contributed to less hunger, saying it may have included the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and reforms in the public distribution system that distributes food to the poor.
“We are excited to see that there are improvements in India and also globally,” Shenggen Fan, IFPRI’s Director Generalm, said in a release.
Progress on child underweight helped India’s 2014 GHI score fall to 17.8 points, a decline of 26 per cent, between the 2005 GHI and the 2014 GHI. “India is no longer in the category with “alarming” hunger and has moved to “serious”, says the report, adding that the country now ranks 55th out of 76 countries, ahead of its neighbours Bangladesh and Pakistan, but behind Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Hunger levels
Overall, the whole of South Asia has made progress in reducing hunger levels, mainly through a decline of almost 9 percentage points in underweight children.
According to the report, “hidden hunger is often hard to detect, but is potentially devastating, as it “weakens the immune system, stunts physical and intellectual growth, and can lead to death''.
The 2014 GHI ranked the countries on three equally weighted indicators -- the proportion of people who are under-nourished, the proportion of children under five who are underweight, and the mortality rate of children under five.
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