According to the 2020 Global Hunger Index, the level of hunger and malnutrition in Morocco is “low.”
The recently-published index ranks Morocco 44th worldwide in terms of hunger and malnutrition mitigation.
The Global Hunger Index, compiled by NGOs Welt Hunger Hilfe and Concern Worldwide, aims “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.”
The index is based on four main criteria: The proportion of the undernourished population, the prevalence of wasting in children under five years (low weight for height), the prevalence of stunting in children under five (low height for age), and the mortality rate of children under 5 years old.
Morocco earned an overall score of 8.9 on a 1-50 scale, with 1 marking the lowest possible hunger level. This year’s score is better than that of 2019 (9.4) despite the country falling two ranks, from 42nd to 44th.
The score improvement has been ongoing for the past two decades. Between 2000 and 2020, Morocco’s overall hunger index went from 15.8 to 8.9, marking a shift from “moderate” hunger severity to “low.”
Morocco’s hunger indicators have significantly improved over the past 20 years. The proportion of the population’s undernourished people decreased from 6.4% in 2000-2002 to 4.3% in 2017-2019.
Meanwhile, the prevalence of wasting children declined from 4.1% in 1998-2002 to 2.6% in 2015-2019. The proportion of stunting children dropped from 24.8% to 15.1% over the same period.
Finally, Morocco’s child mortality rate decreased from 4.9% in 2000 to 2.2% in 2018.
Global situation
The 2020 Global Hunger Index ranked Morocco second in Africa in terms of hunger mitigation. Tunisia ranked first in the continent and 23rd globally.
In the Arab world, Morocco ranked fifth, with the same score as Lebanon. Kuwait came first in the Arab world and among the top 17 countries worldwide, followed by Tunisia, Saudi Arabia (35th globally), and Jordan (43rd).
Worldwide, 17 countries shared the first rank with an index below 5. The top 17 countries include Belarus, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Romania, Turkey, and others.
The countries appearing at the bottom of the rankings are Burundi, the Central African Republic, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, and Yemen.
The low-ranking countries suffer from “extremely alarming” hunger severity. However, due to the unstable conditions in these countries, the Global Hunger Index was unable to determine the individual score of each state.
According to the report, the UN’s “Zero Hunger” Sustainable Development Goal is nearly impossible to achieve by 2030.
The 2020 Global Hunger Index shows that multiple countries have higher hunger levels now than in 2012 and approximately 37 countries are set to fail to achieve low levels of hunger by 2030.
