DUSHANBE, October 19, 2015, Asia-Plus – Tajikistan reportedly tops Central Asian’s nations in terms of the malnutrition rate.
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) this year has ranked Tajikistan 82nd among 104 nations in terms of the malnutrition rate.
The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a multidimensional statistical tool used to describe the state of countries’ hunger situation. The GHI measures progress and failures in the global fight against hunger.
The GHI is updated once a year.
The Index was adopted and further developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and was first published in 2006 with the Welthungerhlife, a German non-profit organization (NGO). Since 2007, the Irish NGO Concern Worldwide joined the group as co-publisher.
To reflect the multidimensional nature of hunger, the GHI combines three equally weighted indicators in one index number: undernourishment (the proportion of undernourished as a percentage of the population (reflecting the share of the population with insufficient calorie intake); child underweight: the proportion of children younger than the age of five who are underweight (low weight for age reflecting wasting, stunted growth, or both), which is one indicator of child undernutrition; and child mortality: the mortality rate of children younger than the age of five (partially reflecting the fatal synergy of inadequate dietary intake and unhealthy environments).
The GHI ranks countries on a 100-point scale. Zero is the best score (no hunger), and 100 is the worst, although neither of these extremes is reached in practice.
In addition to the ranking, the Global Hunger Index report every year focuses on a main topic: in 2015 the thematic focus was on the armed conflict and the challenge of hunger.
Topics of previous years included: hidden hunger in 2014, strengthening of resilience at the community level against under- and malnutrition in 2013; achieving food security and sustainable use of natural resources, when the natural sources of food become increasingly scarcer in 2012; Rising and more volatile food prices of the recent years and the effects these changes have on hunger and malnutrition in 2011; and early childhood undernutrition among children younger than the age of two in 2010.
According to the 2015 GHI, levels of hunger are alarming or serious in 52 countries, including Tajikistan. Most of the eight countries with alarming GHI scores are in Africa south of the Sahara. While no countries are classified in the extremely alarming category this year, this high level of hunger could still exist. Due to insufficient data, 2015 GHI scores could not be calculated for places that recently suffered from high levels of hunger, including Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. From the 2000 GHI to the 2015 GHI, 17 countries reduced their scores by 50 percent or more. The 10 countries that achieved the biggest percentage reductions are Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Croatia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Mongolia, Peru, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
The countries with the highest 2015 GHI scores, and therefore the highest hunger levels, were the Central African Republic, Chad, and Zambia
This year, Tajikistan together with Rwanda and Guinea-Bissau has been ranked 82nd among 104 countries.
