Global hunger index 2024: Bangladesh slips 3 notches to 84

Bangladesh was ranked 84 out of 127 countries in this year's Global Hunger Index (GHI), down three notches from last year, indicating a deteriorating food security situation.

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.

This year, Bangladesh scored 19.4, up from 19 last year.

Each country's GHI score is classified by severity: low to extremely alarming. Bangladesh's score indicates a "moderate" level of hunger.

While Bangladesh, Mozambique, Nepal, Somalia and Togo have reduced their scores by more than five points compared with their 2016 GHI scores bucking the global trend, hunger remains a serious concern, according to the global report, which was released yesterday.

In 2016, Bangladesh scored 24.7.

The level of hunger is "too high" in Bangladesh, said the 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.

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

Besides, 23.6 percent of 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 said.

Among the other South Asian countries, Sri Lanka ranked 56, Nepal 68, India 105 and Pakistan 109.

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.

Globally, hunger is serious or alarming in 42 countries, with dozens of countries still experiencing a level of hunger that is much too high.

Six countries are experiencing alarming levels of hunger: Burundi, Chad, Madagascar, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.

In another 36 countries, hunger is designated as serious.

Furthermore, many countries are slipping backwards: 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.