Suman Roy to Keynote Bangkok Poverty Conference, Challenging 30 Years of Hunger Commitments

A Journey to End Global Hunger: 1995 → 2025 → 2055 – Rethinking Global Commitments Beyond the SDGs

BANGKOK, BANGKOK, THAILAND, March 10, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Suman Roy, Canadian food security advocate, global speaker, and founder of Feed Scarborough, will deliver a keynote address at the 16th Poverty and Social Protection Conference (PSPC2026) in Bangkok, Thailand, March 9–11, 2026. Speaking to an international gathering of researchers, policymakers, and poverty reduction practitioners from over 130 countries, Roy will trace the arc of global hunger commitments from the 1995 World Food Summit to the present day — and make the case that reaching a hunger-free world by 2055 demands far more than a new set of goals.

Thirty Years of Commitments. What Do We Have to Show?

The year 1995 marked a turning point in the global fight against hunger. World leaders gathered at the World Food Summit and pledged, for the first time, to halve the number of hungry people on the planet. A decade later, the Millennium Development Goals carried the same torch. Then came the SDGs, with Zero Hunger — Goal 2 — promising to end hunger entirely by 2025.

As 2025 arrives, an estimated 733 million people still go to bed hungry each night. Climate shocks, conflict, rising food prices, and widening inequality have pushed food insecurity in the wrong direction in many parts of the world. Roy’s keynote confronts this record head-on.

“We have made real progress in pockets,” Roy says. “But we have also made a habit of writing ambitious targets and underfunding the systems needed to meet them. If we are going to look back from 2055 and say we finally did it, we need to have a different conversation today — one that is honest about what has not worked, and serious about what will.”

Building a 2055 Framework That Actually Holds

Roy’s address will not stop at diagnosis. Drawing on three decades of global data, his hands-on experience building community food systems in one of Canada’s most underserved communities, and his work representing Canada at the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), he will outline what a credible post-SDG hunger framework must include.

Key themes of the keynote will address:

Why aspirational language fails: The pattern of ambitious pledges without binding accountability mechanisms, and how to break it.
Local food infrastructure as a global imperative: How community-level investment, not just international aid, is the missing link in most national hunger strategies.

Poverty and food insecurity as the same problem: Why social protection systems and food security policy must be designed together, not in parallel silos.
The 2055 accountability test: What structural changes — legal, financial, and institutional — need to be in place now to ensure the next generation of leaders is not delivering the same speech in thirty years.

A Voice Shaped by Experience, Not Just Policy

Suman Roy’s authority on global hunger is built on a foundation that few international speakers can match: lived experience. He arrived in Canada in 2002 as an immigrant with $42 in his pocket and, within years, became a chef, a food educator, and a fierce advocate for the right to culturally relevant, dignified food access.

When the Scarborough food bank closed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Roy mobilized a response overnight, delivering groceries to over 1,000 vulnerable households within days. That effort grew into Feed Scarborough — today one of Canada’s most innovative community food organizations, operating six food banks and a mobile meal program that serves over 7,500 people every week.

He served as a key consultant in drafting Toronto’s first-ever Food Strategy and has represented Canada on the world stage at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and the FAO. He has spoken on every continent. His awards include the King Charles III Coronation Medal, CEO of the Year (NGO), Changemaker of the Year, and Visionary of the Year.

“I know what it feels like to be hungry and not know why the food in the bag doesn’t make sense,” Roy says. “That experience never leaves you. It shapes everything I bring to these conversations.”

About the 16th Poverty and Social Protection Conference (PSPC2026)

The Poverty and Social Protection Conference is one of the world’s leading interdisciplinary gatherings on poverty, inequality, and social policy. Now in its 16th year, PSPC brings together scholars, practitioners, NGO representatives, and policymakers from more than 130 countries. The conference is hosted annually at the Radisson Suites Bangkok Sukhumvit and is known for its boutique, high-quality format that prioritizes genuine dialogue and actionable insight over large-scale spectacle.

This year’s edition convenes March 9–11, 2026, with a focus on innovative solutions to poverty reduction and the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Jastinder Toor
Feed Scarborough
+1 416-936-3975
email us here

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