The Compass – Jordan ranked 53rd in the new World Hunger Index for 2022, which consists of 136 countries.

The index, which is issued every 7 years by the “German Organization Against Hunger” and “Concern Worldwide”, showed that Jordan received a score of 10.6 this year, compared to 7.4 in 2014.

The report indicated that levels of hunger in the world have reached catastrophic levels, with 44 countries suffering from serious or alarming levels of hunger, according to the new Global Hunger Index for 2022.

The new “horrific” study, which uses data from 136 countries, cites the Ukraine war as one of the reasons why nine countries have alarming levels of hunger.

And 35 other countries, including Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, were found to have alarming levels of hunger in the report, which was published jointly with Irish humanitarian organization Worldwide and German charity Welthungerhilf.

According to the report, South Asia has the world’s highest levels of child stunting (low body weight to height) and child wasting (malnourished or wasted) while sub-Saharan Africa has the highest levels of undernourishment and child mortality rates.

According to the results of the index, 9 countries have alarming levels of hunger and 35 have dangerous levels of hunger, 5 countries have scores, and 4 countries are temporarily classified as worrying.

The report stated that Jordan, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), had witnessed an increase in the prevalence of undernourishment from 6% in 2013-2015 to 16.9% in 2019-2021.

In a report published last year, the FAO confirmed that Jordan is among the 5 countries in the Near East where the prevalence of undernourishment has increased.

The report indicated that undernutrition increased in Jordan by 5.6% during the past twelve years under the pressure of regional tensions and the migration of displaced people to Jordan, due to the wars in their country; The number of “undernourished” in the first period (2004-2006) was estimated at 400,000, but in the period 2016-2018 it reached about 1.2 million.

The prevalence of “nutrition deficiencies” of the total population in Jordan in the period 2004-2006 was estimated at 6.6% of the population, reaching 12% during the period 2016-2018.