International World Food Day is celebrated every year on 16th October and an annual report is announced ever year since 2000 which displays the progress and efforts taken by countries around the world to decrease the level of hunger and undernutrition.
Belarus was the only country that had GHI less than 5 from 2000 to 2010.
The Global Hunger Index was at 28.6 in 1999 and falls under the serious category has a huge decline over the previous years reaching 9.9 in 2015 which is a huge achievement for the world.
The Global Hunger Index 2019 includes 117 countries the top place with the GHI less than 5 was taken by 17 countries (Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay) and the new addition of Bulgaria and the Slovak Republic.
42 countries were ranked in serious categories (GHI 20.0-34.9) including Indonesia (70), Nepal (73), Bangladesh (88), Nigeria (93), Pakistan (94), India (102), Afghanistan (108), and Liberia (112). Central African Republic was ranked 117th in the report with a GHI of 53.6 which falls in the Extremely alarming category.
India:
India ranking at 102 has a GHI 30.3 which falls in serious category majorly due to its large population which has the highest child wasting rate of 20.3 percent in the world, the country also has a very-high child stunting rate at 37.9 percent in terms of its public health significance.
In India, just 9.6 percent of all children between 6 and 23 months of age are fed a minimum acceptable diet. India has seen extremely good improvisation in the drinking water source and the “Clean India” campaign instituted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 to end open defecation has helped but even with new latrine construction open defecation still practiced in the country.
In the 2019 report, 46 counties were mentioned to have GHI less than 9.9 and 69 countries had less than 19.9 which is the moderate category — while in 2018, 40 counties had GHI less than 9.9 and 67 countries had less than 19.9 which is the moderate category.
The report also shows that approximately 45 countries will fail even to reach low hunger (GHI less than 9.9) by 2030 as defined by the GHI Severity Scale.
