About the Founder
Bah Phrang Roy is an internationally renowned person that works for the well being of Indigenous Peoples. He belongs to the Khasi Matriarchal community of Northeast India. He is the first indigenous person to be appointed to the level of Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, an accomplishment he attained when he was appointed IFAD’s Assistant President in 2002. He is also the Coordinator of the Rome-based Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (TIP) and the Founding Chairperson of NESFAS. He has been an Advisory Member of several International bodies such as the Agroecology Fund, USA, IPES-Food, Belgium, TABLE, Oxford, UK and the Global Hub on Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems, Rome, Italy etc..
Bah Phrang Roy began his work at the grassroots level in Western India in 1971, navigating bureaucracy and discovering the role of women as Indigenous Knowledge holders. A person who has always strived to work with and for marginalized peoples and communities, Bah Phrang Roy states, “In their marginalization, the world is missing their diverse knowledge systems and culture.” In 1981, he joined IFAD and explored innovative ways of reaching out to the rural poor and led agricultural and rural development projects in Africa and Asia. Bah Phrang Roy’s time with IFAD also shaped him to become the empathetic and diplomatic activist he is today.
His deep interests are in geography, ecology and biocultural diversity, causes which he strongly stands for today. He said that they only came to light when he joined the Christensen Fund in 2007. As a response to the growing awareness that the well-being of future generations can be sustained and enhanced by nurturing the traditional, biological and cultural knowledge systems of indigenous peoples and local communities, Bah Phrang Roy played a critical role in establishing the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (TIP) at Rome in May 2010 in Cusco, Rome.
Following the inception of TIP, Bah Phrang Roy also conceptualized the idea of having a homegrown/grassroots organization in his own region of Meghalaya, North East, India. The idea officially came to fruition when he founded NESFAS in 2012. Ten years since NESFAS remains one of the pioneer organizations of the region working with Indigenous Peoples Communities in protecting and promoting Indigenous Peoples’ Food Systems along with their diverse traditions and cultures.