Uzbekistan among countries with a low level of hunger

In the 2020 Global Hunger Index, Uzbekistan ranked 30th out of the 107 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2020 GHI scores. With a score of 6.7, Uzbekistan has a level of hunger that is low. Last year, the Republic ranked 49th in the index among the countries with a moderate indicator.

Among neighboring countries, Kazakhstan ranked 21st, Kyrgyzstan – 42nd and Turkmenistan – 52nd. The worst indicators are in some African countries, Pakistan, India and neighboring Afghanistan.

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and national levels. The GHI is designed to raise awareness and understanding of the struggle against hunger, provide a means to compare the levels of hunger between countries and regions and call attention to the areas of the world in greatest need of additional resources to eliminate hunger.

For each country, values are determined by four indicators:

Undernourishment: the share of the population that is undernourished (that is, whose caloric intake is insufficient);

Child wasting: the share of children under the age of five who are wasted (that is, who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition);

Child stunting: the share of children under the age of five who are stunted (that is, who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition);

Child mortality: the mortality rate of children under the age of five (in part, a reflection of the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments).

Then, each of the four component indicators is given a standardized score on a 100-point scale based on the highest observed level for the indicator on a global scale in recent decades.

After that, standardized scores are aggregated to calculate the GHI score for each country, with each of the three dimensions (inadequate food supply; child mortality; and child undernutrition, which is composed equally of child stunting and child wasting) given equal weight.

If a country scores from 0 to 10 points, then the level of hunger is “low”, from 10 to 19.9 points – “moderate”, from 20 to 34.9 points – “serious”, from 35 to 49, 9 points – “alarming” and from 50 points and above – “extremely alarming”.