Centre slams Global Hunger Index Report 2022
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New Delhi: The Union government slammed the Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report 2022, saying that it was completely based on misinformation. The report was published by Concern Worldwide and Welt Hunger Hilfe, Non-Government Organisations from Ireland and Germany. It ranked India at 107, below Pakistan and Nepal, among 121 nations, IANS reported.
The Ministry of Women and Child Development released a statement saying, "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 estimate of the Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population is based on an opinion poll conducted on a very small sample size of 3,000."
The statement said that the GHI report is both disconnected from ground reality and deliberately ignores the government's efforts to ensure food security for the population, particularly during Covid-19.
"Taking a one-dimensional view, the report lowers India's rank based on the estimate of the Proportion of Undernourished (PoU) population for India at 16.3 per cent. The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) estimate is based on 'Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)' Survey Module conducted through the Gallop World Poll, which is an 'opinion poll' based on '8 questions' with a sample size of '3000 respondents'," it said.
"The data collected from a minuscule sample for a country of India's size through FIES has been used to compute PoU value for India, which is not only wrong and unethical, it also reeks of obvious bias," the statement argued.
"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," it said.
The Ministry said the matter was taken up with FAO 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 would be further engagement on this issue, the publication of the Global Hunger Index report, irrespective of such factual considerations, is regrettable, it added.
