Bangladesh ranks 84th among 127 countries in Global Hunger Index

Bangladesh has been ranked 84th among 127 countries in the Global Hunger Index this year with a score of 19.4, three notches down from last year's 81st position.

However, the latest index shows Bangladesh is one of few countries that made notable improvement in fighting hunger since 2016.

Bangladesh scored 19 last year and 24.7 in 2016."In contrast to the global trend, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Nepal, Somalia, and Togo have reduced their GHI scores by more than 5 points compared with their 2016 GHI scores," says the global report released yesterday. Yet, hunger remains a serious concern and "too high" in Bangladesh, says the report.

The level of hunger in Bangladesh this year has been categorised as "moderate".

According to the report, each country's GHI score is calculated based on a formula that combines four indicators — undernourishment, child stunting, child wasting, and child mortality.

Based on the values of the four indicators, a GHI score is calculated on a 100-point scale reflecting the severity of hunger, where 0 is the best possible score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.

Each country's GHI score is classified by severity — from low to extremely alarming.

Read more

Nearly 282 million people faced acute hunger in 2023: UN-led report

The latest index shows 11.9 percent of the total population of Bangladesh is undernourished while 2.9 percent of children die before reaching their fifth birthday.

Besides, 23.6 percent children under the age of five in Bangladesh suffer from stunting and 11 percent of the children under five experience wasting (a child being too thin for his or her height), it says.

Of other South Asian countries, Sri Lanka has been ranked 56th, Nepal 68th, India 105th and Pakistan 109th in the latest index.

In South Asia, hunger remains serious, reflecting rising undernourishment and persistently high child undernutrition, driven by poor diet quality, economic challenges, and the increasing impacts of natural disasters.

With 281 million undernourished people, South Asia accounts for nearly 40 percent of the global total and has the highest child wasting rate of all regions in the GHI.

The report says that globally, hunger is serious or alarming in 42 countries with dozens of countries still experience a level of hunger that is much too high.

The 2024 GHI scores and provisional designations show that hunger is considered alarming in 6 countries: Burundi, Chad, Madagascar, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen.

In another 36 countries, hunger is designated as serious.

Furthermore, many countries are slipping backward: in 22 countries with moderate, serious, or alarming 2024 GHI scores, hunger has actually increased since 2016.In 20 countries with moderate, serious, or alarming 2024 GHI scores, progress has largely stalled — their 2024 GHI scores have declined by less than 5 percent from their 2016 GHI scores.

This year, 22 countries with GHI scores of less than 5 are not assigned individual ranks, but rather are collectively ranked 1-22. Differences between their scores are minimal.

The top five countries in the index are Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, China, and Costa Rica.

The GHI is a peer-reviewed annual report, jointly published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and country levels.

The aim of the GHI is to trigger action to reduce hunger around the world.