Bangladesh stands 88th in Global Hunger Index

GBnews24desk//

Bangladesh has ranked 88th in 2019 Global Hunger Index (GHI), with a level of hunger that is serious. 

Bangladesh reduced hunger significantly but with a score of 25.8, the country still suffers from a level of hunger that is serious, according to the 2019 report. Its previous score was 30.3 in 2010.

The GHI was released on Wednesday by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe, and Concern Worldwide.

According to the GHI, India and Pakistan lagged behind Bangladesh in terms of addressing hunger. India Ranked 102nd while Pakistan 94th.

Among other South Asian countries, Nepal placed on the 73rd spot while Sri Lanka on 66th.

The 2019 GHI has examined levels of hunger in 117 developing countries and countries in transition. The four indicators for the index are undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality.

Globally, the levels of hunger have decreased and the global indicator has changed from ‘serious’ to the cusp of ‘moderate and serious.’ The index says this achievement coincides with a global decline in levels of poverty from 1999 to 2015 and cites that poverty and hunger are closely related.

A high GHI score can be evidence of a lack of food, a poor-quality diet, inadequate child caregiving practices, an unhealthy environment, or all of these factors. The GHI ranks countries on a 100-point scale, with 0 being the best score (which means no hunger) and 100 the worst.

At the regional level, South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara have the highest 2019 GHI scores in the world, at 29.3 and 28.4, respectively.

These scores indicate serious levels of hunger according to the GHI Severity Scale. In contrast, the 2019 GHI scores of Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Latin America and the Caribbean, East and Southeast Asia, and the Near East and North Africa range from 6.6 to 13.3, indicating low or moderate hunger levels.

South Asia’s high GHI score is driven by its high rates of child undernutrition. The child stunting rate for the region is 37.6%, and the child wasting rate is 17.5%; both are the highest levels of any region in this report.

In South Asia, the key factors that contribute to stunting are poor infant and young child feeding practices, poor nutrition among women before and during pregnancy, and poor sanitation practices (Smith and Haddad 2015).

A study of six South Asian countries found that a lower maternal body mass index was significantly associated with child wasting in five of the six countries. Inadequate access to improved water sources and low family wealth were also associated with child wasting in some countries, but not systematically so.

Because a reduction in poverty does not necessarily imply adequate access to improved water sources and sanitation, poverty alleviation policies may not be sufficient to reduce child wasting (Harding, Aguayo, and Webb 2018).

Countries that have identical 2019 scores are given the same ranking (for example, Mexico and Tunisia are both ranked 23rd). The following countries could not be included because of lack of data: Bahrain, Bhutan, Burundi, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Moldova, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Somalia, South Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, and Tajikistan. The 17 countries with 2019 GHI scores of less than 5 are not assigned individual ranks, but rather are collectively ranked 1–17. Differences between their scores are minima