THE CONCEPT OF THE GLOBAL HUNGER INDEX
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger globally and by region and country.1
Calcu-
lated each year by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the GHI highlights successes and failures in hunger reduction and provides insights into the drivers of hunger, and food and nutri- tion insecurity. By raising awareness and understanding of regional and country differences, the GHI, it is hoped, will trigger actions to reduce hunger. A number of different indicators can be used to measure hun-
ger (Box 1.1). To reflect the multidimensional nature of hunger, the GHI combines three equally weighted indicators into one index:
1. Undernourishment: the proportion of undernourished people as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient caloric intake)
2. Child underweight: the proportion of children younger than age five who are underweight (that is, have low weight for their age, reflect- ing wasting, stunted growth, or both), which is one indicator of child undernutrition
3. Child mortality: the mortality rate of children younger than age five (partially reflecting the fatal synergy of inadequate food intake and unhealthy environments).2
This multidimensional approach to measuring hunger offers several advantages. It reflects the nutrition situation not only of the population as a whole, but also of a physiologically vulnerable group—children— for whom a lack of nutrients leads to a high risk of illness, poor phys- ical and cognitive development, or death. In addition, combining inde- pendently measured indicators reduces the effects of random measurement errors.3 The 2013 GHI has been calculated for 120 countries for which
BOX 1.1 CONCEPTS OF HUNGER
The terminology used to refer to different concepts of hunger can be confusing. “Hunger” is usually understood to refer to the discomfort associated with lack of food. FAO defines food deprivation, or “undernourishment,” as the consumption of few- er than about 1,800 kilocalories a day—the minimum that most people require to live a healthy and productive life.* “Undernutrition” goes beyond calories and signifies deficien- cies in any or all of the following: energy, protein, or essential vitamins and minerals. Undernutrition is the result of inade- quate intake of food—in terms of either quantity or quality— poor utilization of nutrients due to infections or other illness- es, or a combination of these factors; these in turn are caused by household food insecurity; inadequate maternal health or child care practices; or inadequate access to health services, safe water, and sanitation. “Malnutrition” refers more broadly to both undernutrition (prob- lems of deficiencies) and overnutrition (problems of unbalanced diets, such as consumption of too many calories in relation to requirements with or without low intake of micronutrient-rich foods). In this report, “hunger” refers to the index based on the three component indicators described on this page.
* FAO considers the composition of a population by age and sex to calculate its average min- imum energy requirement, which varies by country (from about 1,650 to more than 2,000 kilocalories per person per day for 2010–2012 according to FAO 2013a). The country’s average minimum energy requirement is used to estimate undernourishment (FAO 2012).
data on the three component indicators are available and for which measuring hunger is considered most relevant. The GHI calculation excludes some higher-income countries because the prevalence of hunger there is very low. The GHI is only as current as the data for its three component
indicators. This year’s GHI reflects the most recent available country- level data for the three component indicators spanning the period 2008 to 2012. It is thus a snapshot not of the present, but of the recent past. For some countries, such as Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, and Somalia, lack of data on undernourishment prevents the calculation of GHI scores.4
1 2 3
For background information on the concept, see Wiesmann (2004) and Wiesmann, von Braun, and Feldbrügge (2000).
According to recent estimates, undernutrition is responsible for 45 percent of deaths of children younger than five years (Black et al. 2013).
For a multidimensional measure of poverty, see the index developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative for the United Nations Development Programme (Alkire and San- tos 2010).
4
FAO stopped publishing country-level estimates of undernourishment for the Democratic Repub- lic of Congo and Myanmar in 2011 (FAO 2011). According to past GHI reports, the GHI score of the Democratic Republic of Congo was in the “extremely alarming” category with the highest lev- els of hunger. For South Sudan, which became independent in 2011, and Sudan, separate under- nourishment estimates are not yet available from FAO (FAO 2013a). Therefore GHI scores calcu- lated for former Sudan refer to the population of both countries.
2013 Global Hunger Index | Chapter 01 | The Concept of the Global Hunger Index
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