Hunger Reduction Commitment Index

Unlike other hunger indices the HRCI uses indicators derived from a combination of primary data, collected from a perception survey of country experts and secondary data drawn from a variety of publicly available sources. The perceptions surveys, piloted in Bangladesh and Zambia, gathered data from government, civil society, academics, the donor community and others.

These indicators are then grouped under three themes: Policies and programmes, Government expenditures and Legal frameworks.

You can download the latest dataset - released on 1st September 2011 – including latest  results, ranking and sources for the developing country  and now donor country (new Sept 2011) indices.

You can also investigate how the index is constructed and find technical notes and details on the methodology via the background documents.

Welcome to the website for the Hunger Reduction Commitment Index.

Since early 2010 the Institute of Development Studies, Action Aid, Save the Children and Trócaire, have been working to develop a ‘Hunger Reduction Commitment Index’ (HRCI). The Index aims to increase accountability among governments, multilateral agencies, corporations and international NGOs by measuring the political commitment to hunger and malnutrition in both developing countries and in selected donor countries.

Here you will find latest news and background documentation for the project and be able to access the project data. The project is currently in a research phase which is testing a methodology to measure political commitment to reducing hunger and malnutrition.

“Addressing hunger…ultimately is a matter of political priorities..at a global level there is no independent body which audits the implementation of these commitments. Neither is there an independent authority with the power and willingness to name and shame those who have failed to live up to their promises” Hunger Task Force Report to the Irish Government, 2008

The Hunger Reduction Commitment Index project is supported by Irish Aid.

In July 2011 member of the UK and internation NGO community gathered to discuss the ‘Hunger Reduction Commitment Index’ (HRCI) project which aims to measure the political commitment of donor and recipient governments to addressing hunger and malnutrition.

The key objectives of the day were to examine how the draft index could be developed and improved as a means of strengthening civil society advocacy for coordinated government action to tackle hunger.

Download the full workshop report here…

HRCI workshop report public FINAL

The workshop took place on 18th July at ActionAid in London. It was convened by the Institute of Development Studies, Action Aid, Save the Children and Trócaire and facilitated by Carl Jackson of Westhill Knowledge Group.

This is the first in a series of experimental visualisations based on the 1st September dataset.

(Click on the image to see a larger version)

The graph was created using the ManyEyes online visualisation application and shows the additive values of all three themes (Policies and programmes, Government expenditures and Legal frameworks) for each country in the index. You can use the same data to make your own visualisation here.

This is the second in a series of experimental visualisations based on the 1st September dataset.

(Click on the image to see a larger version)

The graph was created using the ManyEyes online visualisation application and shows the values of all three themes (Policies and programmes, Government expenditures and Legal frameworks) for each country in the index. You can use the same data to make your own visualisation here.

This is the third in a series of experimental visualisations based on the 1st September dataset.

(Click on the image to see a larger version)

The graph was created using the ManyEyes online visualisation application and shows the values of all three themes (Policies and programmes, Government expenditures and Legal frameworks) for each country in the index, represented as a pie chart. You can use the same data to make your own visualisation here.

This is the fourth in a series of experimental visualisations based on the 1st September dataset.

(Click on the image to see a larger version)

The graph was created using the ManyEyes online visualisation application and shows the additive values of all three themes (Policies and programmes, Government expenditures and Legal frameworks) for each country in the index and these values are represented on a map. You can use the same data to make your own visualisation here.

The draft final report from Phase 1 of the HRCI project is now available to download.

“Measuring the Commitment to Reduce Hunger: The Hunger Reduction Commitment Index Final report Phase 1″ describes the methodological approach taken to constructing the index and discusses the poject findings. It also contains the most recent results and index rankings generated by the project.

Download the report here…

HRCI Final report for web DRAFT

This article on the IDS website describes the HRCI project…

The famine in East Africa, which is affecting millions of people, is only the latest symptom of a global failure to address hunger. In 2010, 925 million people around the world were chronically malnourished, according to the World Food Programme.

The evidence shows that there is a huge gap between the promises made in international and national declarations and the action taken to turn these promises into reality. But do we really know which governments and donors are committed to reducing hunger?

Read the full article here…

Lawrence Haddad reports back on the Hunger Reduction Commitment Index workshop held at the ActionAid offices in London…

The Irish Hunger Task Force was quite clear in its recommendations that someone should be measuring the commitment to reducing hunger – for rich and poor countries alike. It’s no longer acceptable to talk rather airily about “political will”. Wishful thinking on this is unacceptable, we need to now measure political commitment. But how? Any why?

Read the full article here…

As a part of the developed country/donor index we have designed a survey to gauge expert perceptions of the level of political commitment that developed countries demonstrate towards combating hunger and malnutrition in the developing world. For the purposes of testing the survey we have chosen to look first at the aid efforts of the UK government.

You can participate in the survey by following the link here…