Global Hunger Index not based on an opinion poll, says German non-profit Welthungerhilfe -Jagriti Chandra

-The Hindu

Government has misunderstood ‘undernourishment’, says Welthungerhilfe, which co-published the Global Hunger Index.

German non-profit Welthungerhilfe (WHH) that co-published the Global Hunger Index (GHI) this year rubbished the Government's allegation on Saturday that its ranking of India as among the 16 worst countries was based on an opinion poll. It also pointed out that the Government was wrong to confuse ‘undernourishment’ with “undernutrition”.

Following the launch of the GHI on Thursday which ranked India 101 of 116 countries, the Government expressed its shock and questioned the ‘unscientific’ methodology used by its two publishers, Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, that relies on a “four-question” opinion poll to calculate one of the four indicators used to arrive at the GHI score. The Government singled out the ‘undernourishment’ indicator, because it was the only one where India’s performance deteriorated relative to previous years — undernourishment prevalence rose from 14% to 15.3% between 2017-2019 and 2018-2020.

“The FAO’s telephone-based opinion indicator — the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) —— is not used in the GHI. The GHI uses the prevalence of undernourishment indicator, which is assessed by FAO using Food Balance Sheet data from each country,” Miriam Wiemers, Advisor Global Hunger Index, told The Hindu in an email.

A comprehensive picture

A Food Balance Sheet presents a comprehensive picture of the pattern of a country’s food supply during a specified reference period. It shows for each food item the sources of supply and its utilisation.

The GHI rankings of one year can’t be compared to those of previous years due to data revisions and changes in methodology.

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