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World Hunger - Getting Better or Worse?


Thinking about how rates of hunger have shifted over the last 25 years led me to the Global Hunger Index, which covers - wait for it - the last 25 years. What do we see by looking at their figures for hunger in different countries in the years for which data are available?


The Global Hunger Index uses aggregated statistics to arrive at a 'score' for every country studied in a given year with 0 the ideal and 50+ an absolute nightmare of near famine-level proportions.

If you were switched-on enough to follow the link above you probably noticed it includes an interactive world map showing the change in rates of hunger for folks in many countries that might best be described as low-income or middle-income.

GHI Chapter two figure one

An illustration of the score system is just below.

GHI Severity Scale

And just in case it wasn't already obvious that everything is getting better, here is the data for all of the individual countries measured on a scatter plot in terms of their reduction in GHI score from 2000 to 2015.



GHI Chapter two figure three


Let's note down those countries that have seen very little improvement; Namibia, Sri Lanka, Central African Republic, Iraq, Chad and Pakistan.

Now let's note those with the highest scores overall; Central African Republic, Chad, Zambia, Sierra Leone and Haiti.

The Central African Republic and Chad are on both shortlists. Maybe we should look at these two and see what kind of scores their governments get in the Economic Freedom of the World index. The EFW rankings are from 0.1 to 10 with 10 being complete economic freedom.

Central African Republic - 5.3
Chad - 5.1

What kind of contrast would that make with the EFW scores for those countries that have managed high improvement rates in their GHI scores?

Cambodia - 7.3
Myanmar - 5.6
Rwanda - 7.4

Myanmar sticks out, though its EFW score is still higher than either of the laggardly countries dealt with here. The lesson? Leave people alone to their own devices and world hunger goes away in a generation. Interfere and you look like the Central African Republic and Chad.

If that sounds simplified it's cos it is, but look through the data as much as you please and you'll still find that the thrust of what I'm saying is true.

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