Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan ― July 20, 2010 ― After 30 years of war, many Afghan families lost their primary income earners: their fathers, their husbands and their sons, leaving widows and children to fend for themselves with limited skills or resources.

Mapari and her five children, from Lokhai Village in Eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, are one of these families. Mapari lost her husband to conflict, and was left with little land, few skills, and a family to feed.

All that changed when Mapari became one of 1,200 beneficiaries receiving goats from a USAID SPR community grants program, designed in collaboration with the Government of Afghanistan.

Mapari recalls “before the goats, we had one cow that provided milk for the entire family, but when it died and we were deprived of milk and yogurt. It was very hard to feed my children.”

USAID’s Strategic Provincial Roads (SPR) program takes a holistic approach to development, building roads in tandem with the development of local agricultural communities that live alongside these strategic provincial roads.

The SPR program worked in close collaboration with the Government of Afghanistan, rural communities and village leaders to identify needs for quick impact rural development projects in Eastern Afghanistan.

As a consequence a large community-based grants program was established to provide livestock assistance to villages and disenfranchised families along targeted road alignments.

Mapari is delighted that she can now provide for her family. “The goats provide four kilograms of milk each day, half of which we consume and the rest we sell in the local market for 80 Afghanis ($1.78), providing us with savings that allow my children to study instead of work,” said Mapari.

Rural development projects such as this one empower women and children, and foster support for USAID constructed roads.