The Global Hunger Index falls short on its nutritive value

In general, these global rankings are problematic for several reasons. One, they do not account for the different population sizes, and second, they do not consider the different paths that nations have followed. Only one other country has a population comparable to that of India. Third, they do not keep track of various resource endowments. If a country or region is given aid and assistance for a specific purpose, its achievement on that parameter should be huge. Fourth, it is not easy to replicate such indices as they involve some quantitative and qualitative aspects. Five, such global indices prioritize rank improvement as an ultimate policy objective rather than improving the underlying parameters of nations. This leaves the organizations responsible for such indices open to influence and worse.

For these reasons the ranking of global indices for ‘nutritive value’ and policy making is questionable.

In the case of the Global Hunger Index, India has good reason to feel distressed. First, we start with the name. This is a misnomer. It should more accurately be called the ‘Global Human Nutrition Index’. Citizens of many developed countries are not hungry but suffer from malnutrition. Even the words ‘stunting’ and ‘wasting’ need to be changed. They represent condescending value judgments.

Index creation is quite simple. It has four components: the proportion of the malnourished population; under-5 infant mortality; Stunting in children under 5 years of age and wasting in children under 5 years of age. A country’s score on any of these parameters is compared to the benchmark value, the highest prevailing between 1988 and 2013. The lower this number, the better the country’s achievement on the index. ‘0’ means loss of appetite and ‘100’ means extreme hunger. India’s score was 27.5 in 2021 while it was 28.8 in 2012. Only certain specific years are reference years, not previous years. The body compiling the index relies on data provided by United Nations organizations such as the FAO, UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank.

India has its own National Family Health Survey. Its fourth survey (NFHS-4) was for 2015-16 and fifth for the year 2019-20. But the NFHS-5 figures are incomplete. Should the fifth round be completed, the results are quickly tabulated and discussed. NFHS-4 data is available on a nationwide basis. The proportion of children under 5 years of age suffering from ‘wasting’ (low weight for height) has increased from NFHS-3 to NFHS-4 (19.8% to 21.0%). The proportion of stunted children under 5 years of age has dropped from NFHS-3 to NFHS-4. This is consistent with what the GHI data breakdown also shows. NFHS-3 was for 2005-06.

India has also done well on the under-5 mortality rate. Between 1990 and 2019, the annual reduction in infant mortality rate was 4.5%, which is much better than many countries in the region except two. This is also reflected in the infant mortality rate component of the GHI. So, two of the four components, stunting and infant mortality, which carry 50% of the weight, India did well. On another factor, wasting, India has fared poorly, but it also matches up with the national figures. This leaves us with a fourth item with only a third of the weight and that is the malnourished population.

The FAO, which supplied the data, shows that India’s malnourished population declined from 21.6% in 2004-06 to 15.3% in 2018-20. In the 2020 report which had data for 2017-19, the ratio was 14%. For the 2021 report, the FAO relied on survey data collected through the Gallup World Poll on the cause of Covid.

Survey data, especially if done over the telephone, has drawbacks. The language used and the determination of the questions are important. This is true of all countries. For larger ones, all regions should also be represented. For India in particular, the ‘bias correction’ factor implemented by the FAO can be difficult. Box 3 of the report states, “Populations with access to telephones tend to be wealthier, more educated and mostly urban, which means selection bias that may have underestimated the extent and severity of food insecurity.” This is not true of India. Even the poor have access to mobile phones and even transact using them. Unless the details of the survey, the questionnaires used, the areas surveyed and the bias correction methods adopted are publicly shared, it is difficult to know whether its results reflect true undernutrition.

Given how proud India is to avoid famine-related deaths due to Covid and internal migration thanks to its Direct Benefit Transfer mission, which includes the transfer of government benefits such as food grains, India has a right to be sad on the score Is. After registering its protest, it will have to ignore all global rankings while continuing to work on nutrition goals for its children and other health goals for its adult population.

V. Ananth Nageswaran is a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. These are the personal views of the author.