With no updated data on child malnourishment, India slipped further down on the Global Hunger Index 2010. “India has been ranked 67 in 2010 - in 2009 the country was ranked at 65,” says the International Food Policy research Institute (IFPRI) release.

“IFPRI calculated India’s rank based on the data on undernourished children in 2004-06, which is the latest such data available in the country. We don’t have the data for every year. It is more of a governance issue,” Purnima Menon, research fellow at IFPRI and co-author of the report told Governance Now. She also explained about the report and its consequences and how India fares overall in the report in an interview to Governance Now.

Edited excerpts of the interview.

Tell us more about the report. What are the new things you have incorporated in this year’s report?

The Global Hunger Index is released every year. It is basically built on three indicators: child malnutrition, child mortality rate, and the proportion of people who are calorie deficient. The difference from the last year is basically there are updated data sources across for the different countries both on child mortality and on the calorie intake. So the index is recalculated and based on those factors. But what is different every year we have a focused feature as part of the Hunger index publication. In 2009, we highlighted women status and gender issues as factors underlying hunger. This year we have focused on one of the components of the index – child under nutrition and highlight what’s the latest update on that. We highlight what kind of latest programmes should be implemented to reduce such things. Also, we make policy recommendation specifically on that.

Now tell me about India as it has come down to staggering low on the Hunger index?

India is carrying burden of under nutrition especially among children. More than 40 percent of children are underweight. More than 30 percent of children are stunted means they are too short for their age.

In terms of what needs to be done: there are aspects – Firstly, more direct short terms interventions. In India girls, pregnant women, children under the age of two need health, proper nutrition. In fact, this is not just one ministry which has to do this and it has to come together from different ministries. Secondly, for long term, improving nutrition, how most effectively we can reduce poverty, whether agriculture policy is effective in reducing poverty because proportion of India is in agriculture sector.

Also we have to look at the gender and women’s status which is very big piece of story under nutrition story in India.

As in the index, India has slipped further down in the Global Hunger Index. Your comment on that.

According to the index, India has been ranked 67 in 2010 - in 2009 the country was ranked at 65. But some of that is artifact. The data point of all the countries have shifted. Most of the countries have updated data while India still has to make do with the data available from 2004-06. We don’t have the data for every year. It is more of a governance issue. Countries that take such issues seriously monitor it properly. Vietnam for example took nutrition very seriously and every year it conducts a survey and updates its figure. 

But I see more of a small shift. Although it is a small shift we should still be worried that India still rank in the 60s. With the level of economic growth, and all of that happening in India, why we are not able to do a better job is a big question. There is no sign of the next survey. When are we going to have our next survey on child under nutrition? This is very important investment that people have to make.

India has been placed in the orange category.

India is in orange category because our numbers are ‘alarming’. There are 25 countries in the orange category out of 84 countries studied. We should worry about it and prioritise things. If you have to move India from ‘orange’ to ‘yellow’ we have to deal on child nutrition. That is really holding us back on the Global Hunger Index 2010.  

Do you think that India will meet Millennium Development Goals by 2015?

On nutrition thing we are not quite on track and if we have updated data of 2010 and we can hope to have updated data of 2010. Then we have to see where we are on that. But there are lots of work going on the ground like – the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). But again the mission has not nutrition focus on that despite potential of doing it. They reach to lot of women and children – like pregnant women, child below first year because of the focus of immunisation.

Tell us more about the first thousand days concept?

The thousand days is basically what we called as windows of opportunities for improving nutrition. If we don’t act on the thousand days – between a child is conceived and second birthday you have really lost the battle against nutrition. Not just in the short term but also in the long term. We have data showing children who are poorly nourished in that window of opportunity from conception to the first two years of life – they lose even on economic wage rate in the adulthood, that is the level of damage. It is just not their height of children but their educational attainment, their economic attainment. So reasons to invest in that window of opportunity are to ensure child has the right height and weight at the end of the day. We now have the evidences that what’s needed in the thousand days to improve nutrition. If we look at the India’s figure in our index, it is less than fifty percent for most. We need to get out of that aspect.  

Some of the facts about the report:

•    India has been ranked 67 in 2010 - in 2009 the country was ranked at 65.

•    India is home to 42 percent of the world’s underweight children and 31 percent of its stunted children.

•    With a score of 24.1, India is rank below its neighbours - China, Pakistan, Nepal - and some of the sub-Saharan African countries like Nigeria, Malawi and other Asian countries like North Korea.

•    Children in South Asia are worst off, partly because they start at a deficit; even at birth, many infants in South Asia are already stunted.

•    Twenty-nine countries still have level of hunger that are ‘extremely alarming’ or ‘alarming’.

•    South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa continue to suffer from the highest levels of hunger, with regional scores of 22.9 and 21.7, respectively.

•    This year's hunger figure marked a nearly 10 per cent decline from the 2009 level, with the reduction concentrated in Asia, where 80 million fewer people are estimated to be going hungry this year.

Read the report