The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a multidimensional statistical tool used to describe the state of countries’ hunger situation. The GHI measures progress and failures in the global fight against hunger. The GHI is updated once a year.
The Index was adopted and further developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and was first published in 2006 with the Welthungerhilfe, a German non-profit organization (NGO). Since 2007, the Irish NGO Concern Worldwide joined the group as co-publisher.
The 2009 GHI was calculated for 121 developing countries and countries in transition, 84 of which were ranked. Every year, the GHI report focuses on a main topic: in 2009 the Index measures the connection between hunger and gender equality. In addition, the impact of the financial crisis on the hunger situation was analyzed. In additional to the yearly GHI, the Hunger Index for the States of India (ISHI) was published in 2008 and the Sub-National Hunger Index for Ethiopia was published in 2009.
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Hunger has many faces: increased susceptibility to disease, shortfalls in nutritional status, loss of energy, disability, death due to starvation, or infectious diseases whose lethal course is the result of weakened general health.
The GHI is designed to capture several dimensions of hunger in one value, thus giving an overview of the complex problem. The Index looks at the food situation of the entire population and the effects of inadequate nutrition on children, a physiologically particularly vulnerable group. Children's nutritional status is of particular importance because nutritional deficiencies put them at high risk of physical and/or mental impairment and mortality. Moreover, the combination of independently measured indicators reduces the effects of random measurement errors.
The GHI combines three equally weighted indicators:
1. The proportion of the undernourished as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient dietary intake);
2. The prevalence of underweight children under the age of five (indicating the proportion of children suffering from weight loss and / or reduced growth); and
3. The mortality rate of children under the age of five (partially reflecting the fatal synergy between dietary intake and unhealthy environments).
The Global Hunger Index is calculated as follows:
PUN: proportion of the population that is undernourished (in %)
CUW: prevalence of underweight children under five (in %)
CM: proportion of children dying before the age of five (in %)
The index ranks countries on a 100 point scale, with 0 being the best score ("no hunger") and 100 being the worst, though neither of these extremes is achieved in practice. The higher the score, the worse the food situation of a country. Values less than 4.9 reflect "low hunger", values between 5 and 9.9 reflect "moderate hunger", values between 10 and 19.9 indicate a "serious", values between 20 and 29.9 are "alarming", and values exceeding 30 are "extremely alarming" hunger problem.
The data used for the 2009 GHI are for the period from 2002 to 2007 – the most recent available global data for the three components of the GHI. The data on the proportion of undernourished come from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and are for 2003-2005. Data on underweight of children under 5 are based on data collected by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and MEASURE DHS for the latest year in the period 2002–07 for which data are available and data on child mortality are for 2007 from UNICEF. The 2009 GHI and the recalculated base value of 1990 GHI are not directly comparable to previously calculated GHI values.
The 2009 Global Hunger Index was calculated for 121 developing countries and countries in transition. 84 countries were ranked and their food security situation was compared to 1990 levels. The remaining 37 countries had both a 1990 GHI and a 2009 GHI of under 5 (“low hunger”) and were not included in the ranking.
The 2009 GHI report shows how the hunger situation has developed since 1990 at global, regional, and national levels. Globally, the GHI fell nearly one forth from 20 to 15.2 points. Regardless of this positive trend, the global fight against hunger is stagnating and not reaching its goals fast enough. The global averages hide dramatic differences among regions and countries. 29 countries still have an alarming (20-29.9) or extremely alarming (≥ 30) hunger situation. The 2009 GHI had fallen by 13% in Sub-Saharan Africa compared with the 1990 GHI, by about 25% in South Asia, and by 32% in the Near East and North Africa. Progress in Southeast Asia and Latin America was especially great, with the GHI decreasing by over 40%.
Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia share the highest regional GHI scores (22.1 and 23.0 respectively), but food insecurity in the two regions stems from different reasons: In South Asia, the major problem is a high prevalence of underweight children under five, which is a result of lower nutrition and educational status of women. In contrast, the high GHI in Sub-Saharan Africa is due to high child mortality rates and the high proportion of people who cannot meet their calorie requirements.
From the 1990 GHI to the 2009 GHI only a handful of countries made significant progress by reducing their GHI scores by half or more. At the same time, about one third of the countries made modest progress by reducing their GHI scores between 25% and 50%. Ghana was the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa that cut its GHI by more than 40% and no country in the region is among the 10 best performers in improving the GHI since 1990. Kuwait displayed seemingly remarkable progress in reducing hunger, but this is mainly due to its unusually high level in 1990, when Iraq had invaded the country. The second-best performer, Tunisia, reduced hunger from an already low level in 1990.
Among the ten countries with the most worrisome hunger status and the highest GHI scores (all in Sub-Saharan Africa, except for North Korea), the Democratic Republic of Congo is a clear outlier, with the GHI deteriorating by more than 50%. Conflict and political instability in Burundi, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have increased hunger. In Swaziland, the high prevalence of HIV and Aids, coupled with high inequality, has severely undermined food security despite higher national incomes. Negative trends in economic growth and food production in North Korea have increased rates of undernourishment and underweight in children. In Zimbabwe, once regarded as the breadbasket of Africa, the economic collapse has increased the proportion of underweight children.
The 2009 GHI report compared countries’ rankings in the 2009 GHI to their rankings in the World Economic Forum’s 2008 Global Gender Gap Index. The latter measures the well-being of women relative to men by assessing economic participation and opportunity (including wage equality); educational access, attainment and literacy rates; political empowerment (such as the holding of key political posts at the national level); and health and survival (including life expectancy at birth). The analysis showed that hunger and gender inequality—particularly inequalities in education and health—often go hand in hand.
The strong relationship between gender inequality and hunger requires action in four key areas: continuing to reduce the gender gap in education, investing in women’s health and nutrition, reducing gender inequalities in economic participation and opportunity, and reforming legal systems to eliminate gender discrimination and increase political participation.
The Global Hunger Index is a measurement to measure the hunger situation in a country. It is a Statistical tool. There are three numbers which are used to calculate the GHI. Each number has the same importance:
To get the World Hunger index, the weighted average of the three numbers is taken. This number will be between 0 and 100. Higher numbers are worse. The numbers can be interpreted as follows:
Today, the highest values can be found in Sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia, with values of 22.1, and 23.0. Even though the numbers may be similar, the source of the problem is different. In Sub-saharan Africa the main problem is high child mortality rates, and a large number of people who cannot meet their energy requirements. In South Asia, the main problem is the high number of malnurished children under the age of five. This may also be a consequence of the fact that women have a poorer education, and baby girls are not fed as well as baby boys.
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