In a free and open economic system, every entity has incentive to take up any job. Lots of them choose to engage in publishing their assessment of countries on various parameters. Interestingly, most of the time, these assessments are meant to trap policymakers in the web of big data. Politically, they serve the purpose of people looking for an opportunity to bash the government in service. Global Hunger Index is one such ranking.
India goes down in GHI
The rankings of Global Hunger Index 2022 are out. The ranking indicates that India is one of the worst countries in terms of handling hunger crises. The country which saved nearly half of the world with its wheat during the Ukraine-Russia crisis is ranked at 107th place out of 121 countries. Its score is 29.1 and is put in the “serious” category by the publishers of the report.
While in isolation, this may look like normal ranking for India, as historically India has faced the problems related to redistribution. However, the full chart presents a totally different story. You will find that India, the most stable democracy in the region is performing worse than the countries mired by problems which include civil wars for food as well. Astoundingly, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar and Pakistan are ranked above India.
Absurd trends in rankings
Yes, all 4 countries which have begged the IMF for money in the last 2 years are ranked above India. They did it despite knowing that the IMF is an institution known for its attempts of compromising nations’ sovereign economic interests in the garb of loans. Imagine the shallowness of rankings placing India, the most stable economy in the world below these neighbours.
But, if that is not enough, the ranking gets more absurd when you see Sri Lanka at 64th rank. It is the same country which has been worst hit by woke climatology. Lankan government banned fertilisers, resulting in loss of 50-60 per cent of crop output.
But, why are such absurdities creeping in? Is it possible that one of the most reputed indices in the world is not accurate? Alternatively, is it possible that multilateral financial institutions are pushing this ranking to establish their dominance over erstwhile weaker countries? Let’s delve deep into the publishers and methodologies of the rankings to decode answers to these questions.
Well-funded ranking system
The Hunger Index has a 22-year-old history. In 22 years, it has published 15 reports in total. Currently it is prepared by Irish NGOs called Concern Worldwide and a German NGO called Welthungerhilfe. The Irish NGO Concern Worldwide collects billions of dollars from the Irish government, the European Union, the United Nations, the British government and other government agencies, private donors and major trusts.
Welthungerhilfe also uses similar sources of fundings, which are mainly institutional in nature. Its main donors include World Food Programme (WFP), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the EU Commission and the German Federal Foreign Office (AA).
The funding sources make it clear that there is a governmental hand in the running of these NGOs. It seems highly probable that the funding is affecting methodologies adopted by them as well.
Why am I saying this? Well, that is because the rankings methodology is a classic case of pseudoscience. On the face of it, the big words make it a highly credible ranking system, but a slight intrusion in it clears the air.
Name itself is controversial
The GHI is calculated on four parameters. The first one is Undernourishment, which is calculated by the share of the population whose caloric intake is insufficient. It accounts for 33.33 per cent of weightage.
The other 33.33 per cent is accorded to Child Mortality, which is calculated by the mortality rate of children under the age of 5.
The rest of 33.33 per cent is equally divided into Child Wasting and Child Stunting. A child is considered wasted when they have low weight for their height. Similarly, stunted children are those who have low height for their age.
You see, 75 per cent of the parameters are according to the child’s health. Therefore, it is not appropriate to term this ranking as the Global Hunger Index. Shivendra Kumar Srivastava, Agricultural economist, had rightly called for terming it “Global Hunger and Child Health Index”.
Ranking does not corroborate the ground reality in India
Despite so many flaws in naming of the index, the ranking could be forgiven if it would have corroborated with the real-world data. On one hand, India’s performances on parameters included for calculating rankings keep on increasing, while on the other, GHI ranking keeps downgrading India. For instance, in 2015, for every 1,000 children under the age of 5, 49 children used to lose their lives. In 2020, this child mortality rate came down to 39 in 2020.
Same is the story with the numbers around stunting in India. During the UPA era in 2012, 41.7 per cent of Indian children were found to be stunted. After PM Modi took charge, the number came crashing down to 30.9 per cent in 2020.
Both child mortality and child stunting combinedly carry nearly 50 per cent weightage in the Hunger Index. Even if we consider that India did not perform well in the other two metrics, India’s ranking should have been at least stable on the account of performance in these two metrics.
But it has not been the case. In 2016 ranking, India slipped to 97 position. A year later, GHI downgraded India to 100th rank. In 2018, we went further down to 103rd spot. In 2019, they decided to give some respite to India by giving it an upgrade of 1 ranking point. Surprisingly, in Covid year, the ranking makers marked India as 94th hungriest country among 107. But next year, they continued with their cat and mouse game and dropped India to 101st rank.
India has performed bad in only one category
These deviations do not indicate stability in methodologies. Yes, India did falter in the child wasting category. It is true that child wasting has been a serious concern for India over the last decade, but even that would deform only 16.66 per cent of ranking structure.
Therefore, the last phase of enquiry should be channelled towards the fourth parameter called undernourishment. It accounts for 33.3 per cent of its weightage and there is a serious problem with how it is measured.
Unscientific method of measuring Undernourishment
You won’t believe it, but the level of undernourishment in countries all across the world is calculated by an opinion poll. Yes, you heard that right. This opinion poll is conducted on an extremely small sample size of 3,000 people. How much is it? Well, for context, India has a total of 766 districts. Assuming that due diligence was followed, simple math would tell you that on an average, the questions framed for an opinion poll were asked to less than 4 people in every district of India.
Moreover, the experts framing the rankings do not conduct surveys on their own as well. These lazy people pick the numbers from opinion polls conducted through Gallup World Poll. The questions in the polling are designed to bring out the feelings rather than fact.
Out of the 8 questions in the poll, at least 2 appeal to emotions rather than anything else. Moreover, the compulsion of answering only Yes or No to the questions make it impossible to track the reasons behind the answer. Additionally, there is no mechanism to check whether the person is lying or not.
United Nations endorse pseudoscience
You will be stunned to know that this pseudoscience has the endorsement of the United Nations as well. These questions are part of “Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES)” Survey Module sponsored by FAO, whose parent organisation is United Nations Economic and Social Council (UNESCO).
It is here that India’s ranking is getting affected most. GHI numbers indicate a constant downfall in India’s performance on undernourishment. But that is simply not true. How can an opinion poll asking only 3,000 people measure the undernourishment of the 1.4 billion strong population? It can’t and the Modi government knows that. It has taken the issue to FAO as well, but they are just sitting on files.
Opposition does not care
Meanwhile, the false methodologies do not affect the opposition’s morale. They do not delve deep into the issue before criticising the government. While one can understand if ‘chuttbhaiye netas’ do it to gain some brownie points. How will you explain the fear mongering by highly educated people like P. Chidambaram, Manish Sisodiya and Mahua Moitra.
It is not that they don’t know the full picture. Still, they choose to do it. Only the words politics can explain it. Instead of questioning them, media is just dancing to the idiocy.
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