The International Food Policy Research Institute, Concern Worldwide Ethiopia, and Welthungerhilfe have published ‘The Global Hunger Index Report 2013’ on October 14, 2013.
The report comprehensively measure and track global hunger. The Index combines three equally weighted indicators and ranks countries on the overall score. The three indicators are: the proportion of people who are undernourished, the proportion of children under five who are underweight, and the under-five mortality rate. Countries are ranked 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 2013 GHI reflects data from 2008 to 2012—the most recent available country-level data on the three GHI components at the time of writing. It is thus a snapshot not of the present, but of the recent past.
This year’s GHI shows that global hunger has declined since 1990, but not dramatically, and remains at a level characterized as “serious.”
Compared with the 1990 score, the 2013 Global Hunger Index (GHI) score was 23 percent lower in Africa south of the Sahara and 28 percent lower in North Africa and the Near East.
From the 1990 GHI to the 2013 GHI, 23 countries were able to reduce their scores by 50 percent or more. In terms of absolute progress in improving their GHI scores, Angola, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Thailand, and Vietnam saw the greatest improvements in their scores from the 1990 to 2013 GHI.
- 2013 Global Hunger Index By Severity
The 2013 GHI is calculated for 120 countries for which data on the three components are available and for which measuring hunger is considered most relevant. Out of 120 countries, 78 with GHI 2013 scores of five or higher are ranked. Countries with a 2013 GHI score of less than 5 are not ranked, because hunger is low in these countries and differences between their scores are small.
With “extremely alarming” levels of hunger, Burundi, Comoros, and Eritrea have the highest/worst 2013 GHI scores this year.
Among countries with a 2013 GHI score of five or more, Albania and Mauritius (tied) had the best/lowest 2013 GHI score, followed by Uzbekistan, Panama and South Africa (tied/same score), China, Malaysia, and Peru (also tied), Thailand, and Colombia.
- Interactive version: http://www.ifpri.org/ghi/2013
- Issue Brief: http://www.ifpri.org/publication/2013-global-hunger-index-0
- Report: http://www.ifpri.org/publication/2013-global-hunger-index