Bangladesh Improves in Global Hunger Index-2020

Special Correspondent

In the 2020 Global Hunger Index(GHI), Bangladesh ranks 75th out of the 107 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2020 GHI scores. Although this rank is within the Serious (20.0–34.9) category, its score is 20.4- that means very soon this country will reach to Moderate (10.0–19.9) category. Here point to note, the state of Bangladesh is better than the neighbors like India (rank-94, score-27.2), Pakistan (rank-88, score 24.6) and Myanmar (rank-78, score-20.9). According to GHI, 690 million people in the world are undernourished, 144 million children suffer from stunting and 47 million children suffer from wasting.

What is Global Hunger Index?

The GHI is an annual peer-reviewed publication. It aims to track hunger at global, regional and national levels. It uses four parameters to calculate its scores. GHI uses information from the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the United Nations.

How are the GHI scores calculated?

GHI scores are calculated using a three-step process that draws on available data from various sources to capture the multidimensional nature of hunger.

For each country, values are determined by four indicators:

• UNDERNOURISHMENT: the share of the population that is undernourished (that is, whose caloric intake is insufficient);
• CHILD WASTING: the share of children under the age of five who are wasted (that is, who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition);
• CHILD STUNTING: the share of children under the age of five who are stunted (that is, who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition); and
• CHILD MORTALITY: the mortality rate of children under the age of five (in part, a reflection of the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments).

Over the past 25 years, Bangladesh has made significant progress in reducing its under-five mortality rate and the prevalence of both underweight and stunting. Despite improvement, 54 of 1,000 children do not survive to their fifth birthday, while a staggering 43 percent of Bangladeshi children are stunted. With a population of 160 million, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world.

The leading causes of death in the country are neonatal disorders (48 percent), followed by diarrhea (20 percent), pneumonia (15 percent), and other diseases and causes (17 percent). It is now known that maternal and child undernutrition is responsible for 35 percent of the global under- five death burden, and it is likely that Bangladesh is no exception.

Urbanization in Bangladesh is occurring at an alarming rate. Almost 30 percent of the population now lives in urban areas. Although some statistics show that health services are more accessible in urban centers, these figures often mask the enormous chasm between higher and lower economic classes. Urban slums present particular threats to child survival, and the three underlying causes of undernutrition and child death – inadequate access to food, insufficient care for women and children, and inadequate access to healthcare and an unhealthy environment – present a constant challenge to the survival and development of the children of the urban poor.

To ensure the right to adequate and nutritious food for all and to end hunger by 2030, we must not only reshape our food systems to become fair, healthy, resilient, and environmentally friendly but also integrate them into a broader political effort to maximize the health of humans, animals, and our planet.