2013 GLOBAL HUNGER

INDEX

The Challenge of Hunger

BUILDING RESILIENCE TO ACHIEVE FOOD ANDNUTRITION SECURITY

Why a Global Hunger Index?

• To capture different dimensions of hunger

• To raise awareness of regional and country differences in hunger

• To show progress over time

• To help learn from successes and failures

• To provide incentives to act

• To focus on one major hunger-related topic every year

The GHI measures three dimensions of hunger

• Undernourishment

• Child underweight

• Child mortality

GHI score =

Proportion of the population

that is undernourished

(%)

+Prevalence of

underweight in children under

age five (%)

Mortality rate of children

under age five (%)

3

+

The GHI ranks countries on a 100-point scale

• An increase in a country’s GHI score means the hunger situation is worsening; a decrease indicates improvement in the country’s hunger situation.

• Minimum (zero) and maximum (100) values are not observed in practice.

About the 2013 GHI

• 120 developing countries• reflects data from 2008 to 2012—the most

recent country-level data available• The 2013 world GHI fell by 34 percent from the

1990 world GHI, from a score of 20.8 to 13.8• Plenty of success stories: Bangladesh, Cambodia,

Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda, Vietnam• But 19 countries still “alarming” or extremely so• South Asia’s progress has slowed down

Regional performance and progress

Understanding resilience for food and nutrition security

• This year’s special topic (chapter) was “resilience” in a food & nutrition security context

• Very topical . . .o Global food, fuel and financial criseso Climate change to increase incidence of shockso Major “natural” disasters in the Horn & Sahel

• Cognizance that we can do better in bridging the remaining divide between relief & development

Understanding resilience for food and nutrition security

• What is resilience?

• Is it new? How is it related to existing concepts?

• Is it useful in a food & nutrition security setting?

• What does it mean for strategizing, programming, capacity building, monitoring, evaluation, research?

• What do we know about building resilience based on previous experience?

Concepts: From “bouncing back” to absorption, adaptation and transformation

Resilience as a dynamic concept:3 hypothetical pastoral communities

Academic perspectives on resilience

• Academically, the new resilience paradigm has close ties to the vulnerability paradigm (lessons!)

• Debate about which paradigm better captures the importance of human agency, power relations, etc

• Isn’t yet a universal definition of resilience

• Concerns of negative forms of resilience (stubbornness; negative coping strategies)

• Concerns that “bouncing back” isn’t enough

Policy perspectives on resilience

• On the policy front, what’s new?

• Unifying concept for achieving relief & development

• Acceleration of an existing trend?o Foreign food aid>>>locally sourced food or casho Conditional cash transfers, productive safety netso “Relief” agencies engaging more in development

• But perceptions that existing approaches are still inefficient or too small

Policy perspectives on resilience

• How would we redesign development practices if we were serious about achieving resilience?

• Strategic changes: development strategies & goals

• Operational changes: between and within agencies, national & subnational govts, line ministries, etc

• Portfolio changes: Focus more on prevention?

• Experimentation: safety nets and beyond

Measuring and evaluating resilience

“Measurement drives diagnosis and response” (Barrett 2010)

• Resilience is dynamic, but measured with snapshots

• Irrespective of how we ultimately define resilience, we must have high frequency surveillance systems

• Build on nutrition surveillance systems, such as HKI’s long-running NSS in Bangladesh

• Multi-purpose: early warning, real-time welfare monitoring, impact evaluation, learning

• Accurate diagnosis; timely & appropriate response

Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

Trends in child wasting in Bangladesh: Feb 1998 to Dec 2000

% o

f chi

ldre

n su

fferin

g fr

om w

astin

g

1998 1999 2000

Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

% o

f chi

ldre

n su

fferin

g fr

om w

astin

g

1998 1999 2000

Flood in July and August prolonged hungry season

Regular but intense hunger seasons: April-

August

Focusing on success stories

• One of the motivations of the GHI• What sorts of communities, programs, policies and

countries have had success in building resilience?• What are the roles of different sectors in building

resilience? Agriculture, nutrition, health, education, infrastructure, water, sanitation?

• What are the relevant economic, social and political lessons?

Trends in food aid receipts, 1988-2011

Horn of Africa

Sahel Malawi Zambia Bangladesh0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1988-91 1992-95 1996-99 2000-03 2004-07 2008-11

Food

aid

(kg)

per

cap

ita in

rura

l are

as

• Report available in English, German, French, and Italian

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