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IFPRI ForumProgress in combating hunger and undernutrition has been lagging for several decades. Part of the problem is that it is difficult to measure even the narrowest aspect of food insecurity—inadequacy of dietary energy intake—on a timely basis. Various composite international indices, such as the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index and the Corruption Perceptions Index released by Transparency International, measure other complex phenomena that cannot be captured adequately by a single indicator, but until recently, a widely propagated "hunger index" did not exist.
The Global Hunger Index, created by Doris Wiesmann, a postdoctoral fellow at IFPRI, was designed to fill this gap. It includes three equally weighted indicators: the proportion of undernourished people as estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the prevalence of underweight in children under five as compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO), and the under-five mortality rate as reported by UNICEF. The GHI's broad conceptual basis allows it to go beyond dietary energy availability to better reflect the multidimensional causes and manifestations of hunger.
Thus far, the GHI has been calculated for 1981, 1992, 1997, and 2003, which is the most recent year for which data are available, and has been used to rank 97 developing countries and 22 countries in transition. Regional trends show that in the past two decades, South and Southeast Asia have achieved some success in reducing hunger due to the Green Revolution and to investments in the social sector and in infrastructure. In contrast, the trends are mixed for Sub-Saharan African countries, where the Green Revolution largely failed, and where wars and AIDS have wreaked havoc on food security in many countries.
Violent conflicts, especially protracted wars, have long-term negative effects on the GHI. "More attention should be given to conflict prevention and resolution as well as to rehabilitation measures in the field of agriculture, nutrition, and health after peace has been restored," says Doris Wiesmann.
Wiesmann also found that countries with an HIV prevalence rate greater than 10 percent have a GHI score that is almost 4 percentage points worse than that of countries with lower HIV prevalence rates. She says this can be attributed to concurrent significant differences in the proportion of undernourished and the under-five mortality rate. "The manner in which the AIDS pandemic is confronted is crucial for protecting food security in these countries," she says.