Comment by Riaz Haq on September 27, 2023 at 8:39am

New Delhi: A study by the World Bank has concluded that nearly 80% of people who slipped into poverty in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic hailed from India. Out of 7 crore people globally who became poor that year due to economic losses caused by the pandemic, Indians accounted for 5.6 crore.


https://thewire.in/economy/indians-account-for-80-of-those-who-beca...


Globally, extreme poverty levels went up to 9.3% in 2020 compared to 8.4% in 2019, halting the progress made by poverty alleviation programmes worldwide for the first time in decades. In absolute numbers, 7 crore people were additionally pushed into extreme poverty by the end of 2020, increasing the global total of poor to over and above 70 crore.


“The COVID-19 pandemic dealt the biggest setback to global poverty in decades,” the World Bank’s Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting the Course report declared.

Given that India contributes significantly to global poverty levels due to the sheer size of its population, the World Bank flagged that the lack of official data on poverty from India had become a hindrance in drawing up global estimates. Since 2011, the Indian government has stopped publishing data on poverty.

It noted that due to the lack of official data, the World Bank had relied upon the findings of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE’s) Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS).

Although the findings by the private data firm are yet to be finalised, the World Bank said it had used it for estimating Indian, regional and global poverty levels due to the want of official data. The CPHS data for 2020 noted that 5.6 crore Indians slipped into poverty in 2020.

The report said the World Bank chose to use CHPS data for India over its own paper – published in April 2022 and estimated that 2.3 crore Indians additionally slipped into poverty in 2020 – because poverty in India was “significantly higher” than its own estimates.

The confusion over the data emerging from India, as enunciated by the World Bank report, has once again brought to the fore collective frustration and concern articulated by economists and statisticians in the country and the world over for some time now over Narendra Modi’s government reluctance to release official data, adversely affecting developmental interventions.

The most recent official data on poverty in India dates back to 2011-12 by the National Sample Survey Office of India.

The World Bank report, however, noted that depending upon the method of estimating the number of poor in India rose anywhere between 2.3 crore and 5.6 crore in 2020. “A national accounts-based projection implies an increase of 23 million, whereas initial estimates using the data described in box O.2 [relating to CMIE data] suggest an increase of 56 million — this latter number is used for the global estimate,” the report stressed.

“Because of India’s size, the lack of recent survey data for the country significantly affects the measurement of global poverty, as was evident in Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020,” the report said.

The World Bank, however, observed that overall poverty in India was on a downward slide – largely due to a reduction in poverty in rural areas – between 2011 and 2020 when the pandemic hit. “Even though overall poverty has declined, it is by less than what earlier estimates used for global poverty measurement would suggest,” the report noted, referring to the 2011-20 period.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 13, 2023 at 7:27pm

As India's rank falls to 111, here's everything about Global Hunger Index



https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/as-india-s-rank-falls-...


India's ranking in the Global Hunger Index 2023 fell to 111 out of 125 countries from 107 in 2022. The index, released on Thursday, also stated that India has the highest child-wasting rate in the world at 18.7 per cent, reflecting acute undernutrition.
With a score of 28.7, India has a level of hunger that is "serious". India's neighbouring countries Pakistan (102nd), Bangladesh (81st), Nepal (69th) and Sri Lanka (60th) fared better than it in the index.
South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara are the world regions with the highest hunger levels, with a GHI score of 27 each, indicating serious hunger.


"India has the highest child wasting rate in the world, at 18.7 per cent, reflecting acute undernutrition," the report based on the index stated. Wasting is measured based on children's weight relative to their height.
According to the index, the rate of undernourishment in India stood at 16.6 per cent and under-five mortality at 3.1 per cent. The report also said that the prevalence of anaemia in women aged between 15 and 24 years stood at 58.1 per cent.
The government, however, rejected the index, calling it a flawed measure of "hunger" that does not reflect India's actual position.
The Women and Child Development Ministry said the index suffers from "serious methodological issues and shows a malafide intent".

What is the Global Hunger Index?
Global Hunger Index is a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels. It is released by the Alliance2015, a network of seven European non-government organisations engaged in humanitarian and development action.
The index captures three dimensions of hunger: insufficient availability of food, shortfalls in the nutritional status of children and child mortality (which is, to a large extent, attributable to undernutrition).
It, accordingly, includes three equally weighted indicators: the proportion of people who are food energy-deficient, as estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the prevalence of underweight in children aged under five years, as compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the mortality rate of children aged under five years, as reported by UNICEF.

A regression analysis of the global hunger index on GNI per capita is performed to identify countries that are notably better or worse off with regard to hunger and undernutrition than would be expected from their GNI per capita. Countries are ranked on a 100-point scale, with 0 and 100 being the best and worst possible scores, respectively.
What does GHI 2023 say about the world?
The 2023 Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that, after many years of advancement up to 2015, progress against hunger worldwide remains largely at a standstill. The 2023 GHI score for the world is 18.3, considered moderate and less than one point below the world's 2015 GHI score of 19.1.

Furthermore, since 2017, the prevalence of undernourishment, one of the indicators used in the calculation of GHI scores, has been on the rise, and the number of undernourished people has climbed from 572 million to about 735 million.

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