The Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index (HANCI) ranks governments on their political commitment to tackling hunger and undernutrition. The index was created to provide greater transparency and public accountability by measuring what actions governments take, and what they fail to do, in addressing hunger and undernutrition.
Why measure commitment to reduce hunger and undernutrition?
There are many reasons for insufficient progress in reducing hunger and undernutrition. One of these is a “lack of political will” or political prioritisation. Strong and high level political commitment is essential to prioritise the fight against hunger and undernutrition.
HANCI measures political commitment to reducing hunger and undernutrition, among both developing and developed countries. Our hope is that this will:
- Enable civil society to exert greater pressure on governments and international policy makers to take action
- Encourage governments to evaluate their own efforts and to prioritise appropriate action
If we can achieve these goals we believe we can make a real contribution to increasing and intensifying action to reduce hunger and undernutrition.
How is HANCI constructed?
HANCI compares and ranks the performance of 45 developing countries based on 22 indicators of political commitment. The indicators are split between indicators of commitment to hunger reduction (10 indicators) and indicators relating to commitment to addressing undernutrition (12 indicators). In both sets they are grouped under three themes:
- Legal frameworks (for example the level of constitutional protection of the right to food)
- Policies and programmes (for example the extent to which nutrition features in national development policies/strategies)
- Public expenditures (for example the percentage of government budgets spent on agriculture)
Download HANCI 2013 Report.
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