Sarah Chayes

Sarah Chayes serves as special advisor to General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. She brings an intimate knowledge of Afghanistan, especially the Pashtun south. In May 2005, she launched an agribusiness in downtown Kandahar, where she has lived since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Its objective is to expand the market for licit local agriculture. (www.arghand.org). From that position, deeply embedded in Kandahar's everyday life, Ms. Chayes has gained unparalleled insights into an increasingly troubled region.

Chayes initially arrived in Afghanistan as a correspondent for National Public Radio, covering the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Prior to that, traveling from her base in Paris, she reported on European affairs, Algeria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and the Balkans.

It was upon the invitation of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's uncle that Chayes decided to leave journalism in 2002, to contribute to rebuilding Afghanistan. She first served in Kandahar as field director for Afghans for Civil Society, a non-profit group founded by Qayum Karzai, the president's older brother. Under Chayes's leadership, ACS rebuilt a village destroyed during the anti-Taliban conflict, launched a successful income-generation project for Kandahar women as well as the most popular radio station in southern Afghanistan, and conducted a number of policy studies. In 2004, she left ACS to focus on economic development.

Chayes graduated in History from Harvard University in 1984, earning the Radcliffe College History Prize. She served in the Peace Corps in Morocco, then returned to Harvard to earn a master's degree in History and Middle Eastern Studies, specializing in the medieval Islamic period.

Chayes's book, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban (Penguin Press, 2006) focuses on events in the Afghan south, from the fall of the Taliban through summer 2005. She has written for numerous publications, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angelses Times, The Boston Globe, Toronto Globe and Mail, and The Mail on Sunday.