Vietnam has moved to the 62nd place in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2019 as compared to the 64th position in 2018 thanks to the Government’s measures to end hunger and children’s malnutrition.

School milk programme has been implemented to ease malnutrition in the country. 

With a score of 15.3 out of 100, the level of hunger in Vietnam has been classified as “moderate”, according to the GHI 2019 report released by the Irish aid agency Concern Worldwide and Germany’s Welt Hunger Hilfe.

The GHI is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at global, regional and national levels. GHI scores are calculated each year to assess progress and setbacks in combating hunger. The GHI is designed to raise awareness and understanding of the struggle against hunger, provide a way to compare levels of hunger between countries and regions, and call attention to those areas of the world where hunger levels are highest and where the need for additional efforts to eliminate hunger is greatest.

This year, the index measured 119 countries and territories around the world. For each country, GHI value was determined based on four indicators of undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and child mortality. GHI scores on a 100-point GHI Severity Scale, where 0 is the best score (no hunger) and 100 is the worst.

Vietnam had its global hunger score fall from 28.3 (classified as serious) in 2000 to 15.3 this year. The result was much better than those in regional countries such as Myanmar (19.8 and at 69th place), Indonesia (20.1 and at 70th), the Philippines (20.1 and at 70th), Cambodia (22.8 and at 77th) and Laos (25.7 and at 87th).

Vietnam stood behind Thailand (46th) and Malaysia (57th) in the Southeast Asia.

Last year, the Vietnamese Government launched a “hunger elimination” campaign to reduce the rate of malnutrition through nutrition improvement and sustainable production of food.

According to the GHI report, the proportion of undernourished population in the country decreased from 24.3 percent in 2000 to 9.3 percent in 2019. The prevalence of wasting in children under five years old dropped from 9 percent in 2000 to 6.4 percent nine years later. Meanwhile the child stunting rate was cut from 42.9 percent in 2000 to 24.6 percent in 2019.

The World Bank and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recently called on the Vietnamese Government to make more efforts to prevent child malnutrition by funding nutrition-related programmes, building multi-sector plans to settle determinants of undernourishment and making early interventions.