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GLOBAL HUNGER INDEX

PHL back among countries with ‘serious’ hunger issues, think tank says


A 0.1-point increase in its annual Global Hunger Index (GHI) score put the Philippines back up among the countries with "serious" hunger situations after a brief stay in the "moderate" zone.

With its current score, the Philippines ranked 68th out of 119 in the list of countries assessed by researchers for the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) this year.

But the country's GHI score has hardly budged in three years according to the 2017 report. The Philippines' current GHI score of 20.0 is just barely higher than 2016's 19.9 and barely lower than 2015's 20.1.

A higher GHI score means a worsened hunger situation, while a lower GHI score indicates improvement in the hunger situation, according to the IFPRI.

In general, however, data from the IFPRI report says the Philippines' GHI score has dropped by more or less ten percent from 1992 to 2017.

The GHI score is based on data from four component indicators: undernourishment (people with insufficient caloric intake), child wasting (or children with low weight for their height), child stunting (or children with low height for their age), and child mortality (mortality rate of children below five years old, according to the IFPRI.

The study found that global hunger has decreased by 27 percent from the 2000 level, but that conflict and climate change still cause millions to fall prey to food crises and famines.

The Philippines is one of 44 countries with a "serious" hunger condition in 2017.

Among those in the "serious" category are Asian countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Iraq, and African countries such as Nigeria, Namibia and Kenya.

The Central African Republic is the sole country in the "extremely alarming range" on the GHI Severity Scale, with a GHI score of 50.9, an increase from its score of 47.0 in 2008.

Seven countries are in the "alarming" range: Chad, Liberia, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Yemen, and Zambia.

Meanwhile, 24 other countries are in the "moderate" range, while 43 are in the "low" range.

Fourteen countries, many of them in Europe and South America, topped the list with the lowest hunger levels. 

Thirteen countries lack sufficient data, but nine of them, including war-torn Syria, may actually have some of the highest levels of hunger, said the report.

The IFPRI, Concern Worldwide, and Welthungerhilfe compiled the annual report. —NB, GMA News

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