DHAKA: Bangladesh remains ahead of India and Pakistan in a list of 117 countries in the 2019 Global Hunger Index (GHI) that tracks hunger and malnutrition, according to a report jointly released by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, two international non-profits that work for humanitarian aid.

Bangladesh ranks 88th while India at 102nd and Pakistan 94th in this year's GHI report published on Tuesday (Oct 15) that the authors say is designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and national levels.

In 2018 GHI, Bangladesh was ranked 88th while the positions of India and Pakistan were 103rd and 106th, said the report.

The Global Hunger Index or GHI scores countries on a 100-point "severity scale", where zero is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst. "With a score of 30.3, India suffers from a level of hunger that is serious," the GHI report says.

The index was calculated on four parameters: undernourishment; child wasting, or the share of children under five years who have a low weight for their age; child stunting, or the share of children under five years who have a low height for their age, and child mortality rate under five years.

"Using this combination of indicators to measure hunger offers several advantages. The indicators included in the GHI formula reflect caloric deficiencies as well as poor nutrition. The undernourishment indicator captures the nutrition situation of the population as a whole, while the indicators specific to children reflect the nutrition status within a particularly vulnerable subset of the population..." the report added.

BDST: 1415 HRS, OCT 16, 2019
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