India's GHI ranking should be 32, not 111. Unravelling the numbers

Over 151 million in China are severely malnourished or grossly undernourished. Given the size of China's population, rates of 9.4% for stunting in children, 19.6% for anemia, and 25% for overweight, represent significant national and global burdens. And yet, China is one of the 17 countries with a Global Hunger Index (GHI) score of less than 5, which clearly shows something is horribly wrong with the GHI calculation. China generates almost a quarter of the world’s total food loss and waste (FLW). The land, water, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus footprints of China’s food waste alone are comparable to those of an entire medium-sized country. In China, about 27% (or 349 million tons) of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted annually. That explains in some measure why 151 million have no food or very little access to nutrients. Despite high malnourishment, widespread hunger, and lack of food, why does China still have a great, as in a very low GHI score? Well, that is not hard to explain. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) calculates GHI scores each year to assess progress, or the lack thereof, in combating hunger. And China is one of the biggest donors of IFPRI.

Kevin Chen is a senior research fellow in development strategies based in Beijing, China. He is also director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD), jointly established by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the IFPRI. Before joining IFPRI in 2009, Kevin was Field Director of the China–Canada Small Farmer Adapting to Global Markets Project, jointly funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. Kevin Chen wears multiple hats and is a part of the Chinese establishment. Equally, for the longest time, he has been very closely associated with the calculation of the GHI score for various countries, during his long tenure with the IFPRI. Is it not a conflict of interest that IFPRI, with China as its key donor and a Chinese research fellow (Chen) as its key employee, gives a clean chit to the Chinese government, ignoring hard data that shows hunger in China is a serious problem? By virtue of the same logic, is it not unfair that India which actually served as the granary of the world all through 2020,2021 2022 and now in 2023, by either exporting or distributing food to other nations, is ranked at 111 by the IFPRI? How can India have a GHI ranking of 111 whereas the nations that India gave free foodgrains to all through the pandemic and beyond, have a better GHI ranking than India? Does that not smack of bias by the IRPRI? It certainly does, more so given the Chinese angle.

A consistent effort is repeatedly visible to taint India’s image as a nation that does not fulfill the food security and nutritional requirements of its population. Misinformation seems to be the hallmark of the annually released Global Hunger Index (GHI). The Global Hunger Report released by Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, non-government organisations from Ireland and Germany respectively, ranked India at 107 among 121 countries in 2022 and at 111in 2023. The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues. Three out of the four indicators used for the calculation of the index are related to the health of children and cannot be representative of the entire population. The fourth and most important indicator of the proportion of undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small, average sample size of barely 3000 odd respondents in India every year. Household consumption surveys, which have not been conducted since 2011, are the primary source of data. This limited sample size and reliance on a constrained set of questions introduce biases that fail to capture the intricate nuances of India's food situation which is actually, very very healthy.

For instance, over the years, India has made considerable progress in augmenting per capita food availability, doubling from 800 grams to 1.6 kilograms per person per day since 1950. Furthermore, India's food exports surged to an impressive $20.79 billion in the fiscal year 2020-21. Data shows that total farm exports were at $53.15 billion and imports at $35.69 billion during 2022-23, surpassing previous year's records. The resultant agricultural trade surplus has marginally dipped from $17. 82 billion  in FY22 to USD 17.46 billion in FY23. Agricultural exports registered robust growth: Fruits and Vegetables exports increased by 18.94%, Oil Seeds by 32.83%, Oil Meals by 34.24%, and Rice by 5.38% in July 2023 over July 2022.

This economic growth ought to translate into a substantially lower GHI score of say 5 or even lower. Also, genetics account for 80% of height and weight determination, with nutrition and the environment contributing the remaining 20%. This height and weight variability is evident not only between countries but also within India itself. Hence for a country like India and even within various States in India, not hunger but genetics may be the reason for a lower height for people with the same weight. Moreover, India's under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) stands at 3.1%. Evidence supports the notion that child mortality does not result solely from hunger. Diarrheal diseases and respiratory infections emerge as the primary causes of under-5 fatalities in India and not malnutrition. 

Also, the GHI report highlights India's alarming child wasting rate of 18.7%, the highest globally, and a child stunting rate of 35.5%, ranking 15th highest. But these figures are drawn from the old (NFHS-5) data. In stark contrast, real-time data from the Ministry of Women and Child Development's Poshan Tracker reports a wasting rate of just 7.1% as of April 2023. This huge disparity raises legitimate doubts about the credibility of GHI calculation.

Again, in its justification for data on stunting (height-for-age) and wasting (weight-for-age), the report quotes alarmingly old data from the WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study (MGRS) undertaken between 1997 and 2003. This casts serious doubts on the precision and relevance of GHI metrics in portraying India's correct status. While India ranked 111th out of 125 countries, neighboring countries, such as Pakistan (102nd), Bangladesh (81st), Nepal (69th), and Sri Lanka (60th), scored better than India. The irony is that it is India which repeatedly came to the rescue of most neighbouring countries in the last few years when they suffered massive food paucity and hunger. Considering these aforementioned factors and juxtaposing them, a revised analysis suggests India's overall GHI score should be 6.1, positioning it at the 32nd rank in the Global Hunger Index.  IFPRI's outdated methodology casts serious doubts on the precision and relevance of GHI metrics in portraying India's correct status.

While there is clearly malicious intent, it is evident that there are methodological errors and misinterpretations too. Additionally, there is a prevailing mind-set issue rooted in stereotypes, where India is often perceived as a nation plagued by widespread child starvation. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that under PM Modi, massive progress has been made in the areas of food security and nutrition.

The GHI report is not only disconnected from ground reality but also chooses to deliberately ignore efforts made by the Modi government to ensure food security for India's 1.4 billion strong population, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking a one-dimensional view, the report lowers India’s rank based on the estimate of Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population for India at 16.3%. The FAO estimate is based on “Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)” survey module conducted through Gallup World Poll, which is actually just an opinion poll based on usually 8 questions with a sample size of no more than 3000 odd respondents. The data collected from a miniscule sample for a country of India’s size through FIES has been used to compute PoU value for India which is not only wrong & unethical, but it also reeks of obvious bias. The publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report, Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, have evidently not done their due diligence before releasing the report, much less the IFPRI. 

The matter was taken up with FAO last year, not to use such estimates based on FIES survey module data in July 2022, as the statistical output of the same will not be based on merit. Though an assurance was forthcoming that there will be further engagement on this issue, the publication of the Global Hunger Index report irrespective of such factual considerations, has happened yet again in 2023. Nothing has changed between 2022 and 2023, despite the Indian government giving ample empirical evidence on how the calculation of GHI is highly faulty and erroneous.

Some of the questions asked to the respondent are– “During the last 12 months, was there a time when, because of lack of money or other resources: You were worried you would not have enough food to eat? You ate less than you thought you should? It is evident that such subjective questions do not search for facts based on relevant information about the delivery of nutritional support and assurance of food security by the Modi government. The per capita dietary energy supply in India, as estimated by FAO from the food balance sheets, has been increasing year-on-year owing to enhanced production of major agricultural commodities in the country over the years and there is absolutely no reason why the country’s undernourishment levels should increase, logically speaking. So clearly the GHI score calculation methodology  by the IFPRI is faulty.

The Modi government has taken a series of measures to ensure food security. Some of the actions taken in this regard include among others, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), the largest food security programme in the world. In the wake of economic disruptions caused by the unprecedented outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, the Modi government in March 2020 had announced the distribution of additional free-of-cost foodgrains (Rice/Wheat) to 81 crore National Food Security Act (NFSA) beneficiaries at the scale of 5 Kg per person per month free food grains, over and above the regular monthly NFSA food grains i.e., regular entitlements of their ration cards. PMGKAY thereby effectively doubled the quantity of monthly food grains being normally delivered to the NFSA households, so that the poor, needy and the vulnerable households did not suffer on account of the non-availability of adequate food grains. So far, under the PMGKAY scheme the Modi government has allocated well over 1500MT MT foodgrains to the States/UTs equivalent at a cost of over Rs 4 Lakh crore in food subsidy. The scheme is still ongoing. Under Anganwadi Services, since the Covid-19 pandemic, supplementary nutrition was provided to over 9 crore children upto the age of 6 years and to over 2.5 crore pregnant women and lactating mothers.Under the Pradhan Mantri Matri Vandana Yojna (PMMVY) more than 2 Crore registered women were provided Rs 5000/- on the birth of their first child for wage support and nutritious food during pregnancy and post-delivery period. Did the IFPRI take all the above data into account while calculating India's GHI score? Obviously, it did not.

The three other indicators apart from PoU, included in GHI relate primarily to children viz. Stunting, Wasting and Mortality of those under 5 years of age. These indicators are outcomes of complex interactions of various other factors like drinking water, sanitation, genetics, environment and utilisation of food intake apart from hunger, which is taken as the causative/outcome factor for stunting and wasting in the GHI. Calculating hunger based on mainly indicators relating to health indicators of children is therefore neither scientific nor rational.GHI is calculated and disseminated annually. How is it that India, which is the 5th largest economy in the world and has a good ranking in many other development indicators, has a poor ranking based on this GHI index alone After a critical review of the appropriateness of the indicators used in GHI, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has the viewpoint that the indicators of undernourishment, stunting, wasting and child mortality do not measure hunger per se. Referring to the GHI index as a hunger Index, and thereby ranking countries is not appropriate, since many of the measures that are used to evolve an index that measures hunger are simply contextual. Countries should therefore evolve their own measures that are suitable for their own context. GHI prepared by the IFPRI is clearly fraught with a huge anti-India bias, subjectivity and above all a lack of objective evaluation of India's health, nutrition and mortality related  track record.

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) was initially developed to focus attention and mobilize political will in the fight against hunger. The GHI has subsequently been used as a metric to annually measure and track hunger at the global, regional and national levels. India has ranked poorly in the GHI but this ranking is counterintuitive, considering that India ranks fifth in the world economy in terms of nominal GDP. Hunger is an emotional subject and there have been many criticisms and rebuttals of the GHI. Indian policymakers have argued that the GHI is a misleading hunger index as its methodology ignores genetic factors wherein international norms on stunting and wasting may not be applicable to India. Noted columnists in India have also commented on how a faulty metric, which is based on four measures or indicators (none of which actually measure hunger) is creating a flawed narrative against India.

Prominent researchers have commented that the GHI exaggerates the measure of hunger, lacks statistical vigour, has a problem on multiple counts and gives higher representation to the category of under-five children. The measurement of hunger is complex and should not be oversimplified, as in the case of the GHI. Therefore, the use of alternative approaches should be considered to evaluate hunger. In view of these issues, the ICMR, Department of Health Research of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, constituted in 2019, an expert committee, to review the indicators used in the GHI. The deliberations of this committee argued that the four indicators used in the GHI, namely undernourishment, stunting, wasting and child mortality, do not measure hunger per se, as these alone, are not the manifestations of hunger.

The GHI is a weighted average derived from four indicators1. These are (i) the PUN, or proportion of the population that is undernourished, calculated as the proportion of the population that has an energy intake less than the FAO Minimum Dietary Energy Requirement (MDER) of 1800 calories/capita/day1; (ii) CWA, or the prevalence of wasting in children under five years old, estimated as the percentage of children aged 0-59 months, whose weight for height is below minus two standard deviations (-2SD) from the median of the WHO Child Growth Standards1; (iii) CST, or the prevalence of stunting in children under five years old, estimated as the percentage of children, aged 0-59 months, whose height for age is below -2SD from the median of the WHO Child Growth Standards; and (iv) CM, or the proportion of children dying before the age of five, estimated as the proportion of child deaths between birth and five years of age, generally expressed per 1000 live births. As per the justification mentioned in the GHI report for using these indicators, the PUN indicator captures the nutrition situation of the entire population while the other indicators are specific to under-five children (CWA, CST and CM) in which the adverse effects assume greater importance. The inclusion of both wasting and stunting (CWA and CST) is intended to allow the GHI to consider both acute and chronic undernutrition. But the moot question is this —Is hunger manifested accurately in undernourishment, stunting, wasting and child mortality? The answer is No. Is it relevant to have only data largely pertaining to children below the age of 5 years and use that in the Indian context? The answer again is, No.

It is of interest to examine whether the indicators used in the GHI actually measure hunger. If these are manifestations and consequences of hunger, the simple corollary is that among those who are relatively rich, having sufficient purchasing power and with no problem of access to food, the proportion of undernourished, stunting, wasting and child mortality should be negligible. But that is not the case. To examine the corollary stated above, the findings from National Sample Survey Office (NSSO)16 and the National Family Health Survey, 2015-16 (NFHS-4)17 are important and relevant. The data collected by these surveys provide estimates of the GHI parameters for different wealth quintiles. To calculate wealth for each household, a score is calculated using information on household characteristics, amenities and assets. The households are then ranked and categorized into five (1st to 5th) wealth quintiles which are lowest, second, middle, fourth and highest, respectively. It is evident that the top two wealth quintiles, the fourth and highest, which represent the top 40% of the population, could be considered to be those who would have sufficient purchasing power and access to food to meet all their nutrition requirements. The measured proportions of undernourishment, stunted and wasted children in these two wealth quintiles (4th and 5th) were 7.3%, 25.7%, and 18.6%, respectively, while the under-five mortality per 1000 live births was 25.81%. This indicates that undernourishment, stunting and wasting are not the consequences of hunger alone, as these manifestations are seen among the relatively rich as well.

Further, in the NFHS-4 data, stunting and wasting were significantly prevalent among children of normal body mass index (BMI), and overweight mothers too. Presumably, these mothers, with normal and higher BMI, should have no problem of shortage of food for their children, and as a corollary, the levels of stunting and wasting should have been negligible. Thus, these results reject the notion that the indicators of undernourishment, stunting, wasting and child mortality used in the GHI, are the causes or the consequences of hunger. Therefore, it is not appropriate to consider the GHI as an accurate measurement of hunger.

Based on the available evidence as collated above, the indicators of undernourishment, stunting, wasting and CM do not measure hunger, and thus, referring to GHI as Hunger Index is a misnomer. While the Index intends to assess the status for the entire population, it actually gives excessive weightage to under-5 children. The calculation of GHI as an index in terms of percentage is often interpreted as the percentage of hunger by the general population. It is important to mention here that the FAO has been propagating the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) as a measure of hunger, which has been experimented with and calculated by a large number of countries. The measurement of hunger is a sensitive issue; therefore, due care is required in assessing the appropriateness of FIES as a measure for hunger in India, given the very nature of a perception-based survey like the FIES.

Other measures of hunger such as Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA) based Food Access Survey Tools (FAST) and its modified version (MFAST) in the Indian context may also be considered. The measurement of hunger is a complex methodological issue and a challenge for statisticians and subject experts. In view of this, a robust and acceptable country-specific methodology needs to be developed to measure hunger on priority. Proxy indicators for hunger like the GHI should be avoided. Zero hunger is one of the important goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, we need a full stop to the use of indirect and ill-conceived measures of hunger like GHI unless they are made more objective. Importantly, for international comparison, there has to be a common yardstick that could be developed through consensus among countries after they have developed their own measures.  

Given the aforesaid real time data and factors, a revised analysis suggests that India's overall GHI score should be 6.1, positioning it at the 32nd rank in the Global Hunger Index. This score offers a more accurate reflection of India's food security situation. Also, the IFPRI which calculates the GHI, owes India an urgent explanation on why obsolete data was used. In some cases data that is over 20 years old and is no longer relevant, was used by the IFPRI to arrive at a ranking of 111 for India, out of 125 countries. Clearly, India, a nation known for its agricultural prowess and food surplus status, has implemented robust safety net programs, such as the Public Distribution System, the  Integrated Child Services Program and PM Poshan, which aim to enhance nutrition among preschool and school-age children. These endeavours, in conjunction with India's robust economic growth, present a highly optimistic view of the country's food security situation, unlike what the GHI ranking would suggest. India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has demonstrated significant political will to transform its food and nutrition landscape. However, the use of obsolete data by IFPRI frustrates these efforts and it is about time for the IFPRI to do a course correction, by deploying real-time data.

Ms. Sanju Verma is an Economist, National Spokesperson for BJP and Bestselling Author of "The Modi Gambit".