The Foreign Service Journal, December 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2018 47 cope with difficulties such as flood and drought, by introducing new and improved production practices, post- harvest value addition, business skills and marketing. As a monitoring and evaluation spe- cialist, I meet people in the field, learning from them about how activities are going, and I get to see the change in people’s lives. We reached almost 300,000 smallholder farmers in four provinces around the great Tonlé Sap Lake, providing knowledge, skills and better access to finance, markets and jobs. The data I collected demonstrated that nearly 200,000 farmers had improved their agricultural practices and saw their yields increase by as much as 200 percent. With this assistance, farmers saw increased sales, adding up to $40 million to the economy in those provinces. Our assistance contributed to a significant reduc- tion in poverty and improved children’s health in the four prov- inces. The number of people living below the national poverty line decreased from 40 percent in 2009 to 17.5 percent in 2015. Child stunting rates—a measure of malnutrition—also significantly dropped, from 44 percent in 2010 to 33.7 percent in 2014. This is an incredible story that my numbers have helped to write. I had a firsthand view of the flooding and then of the recov- ery. Feed the Future changed the lives of many Cambodians for the better. Vegetable buyer Lach Nam collects eggplants from farmer Chun Sokhom to supply to the market in Phnom Penh. Tonh Mok is a development assistance specialist for USAID/Cambodia’s Food Security and Environment Office. He joined USAID in September 2012. Apart from his core role as a monitor- ing and evaluation specialist, he has also managed or co-managed a num- ber of Feed the Future programs that help Cambodian people improve food security and nutrition, and reduce poverty. w Nurturing Nutrition Leadership in Uganda n BY SHEILA NYAKWEZI In Uganda, malnutrition is robbing the future from one in every three children, with devastating consequences at every level of society and on the country’s economic development. I have observed the impact of undernutrition in households and health facilities in Uganda. As development partners and the government of Uganda respond to this complex problem, I have been privi- leged to provide my expertise. Addressing malnutrition requires multiple interventions, among which the need to bridge and strengthen the human resource gap that is critical in planning, leading and managing nutrition programs is the most important. COURTESYOFUSAID Tonh Mok.