LocationsKhatim-Ul-Anbia – Guzara District, Herat, Afghanistan
Small Town, Big Future
May 12, 2026
UNDP Afghanistan
In a tailoring workshop in Herat, western Afghanistan, Fatima Sharifi sits at her work station, her fingers moving nimbly over a piece of blue fabric. Around her, four other women work at sewing machines, their needles clicking in rhythm.
Just one year ago, Fatima’s life was very different. She was at home, doing unpaid housework, with no money of her own. Like many women in the village oif Khatim-Ul-Anbia, Fatima’s life involved no choices, only routine.
Today, she earns 7,000 AFN (around $100 USD) every month, supporting her brothers and sisters as the breadwinner of the family, after the loss of their father.
"Before, I had nothing," she says simply. "Now I have work which provides me a stable income with which I can meet my family's basic needs."
Building a profitable business depends on many factors outside one person's control. A tailoring business like Fatima’s needs customers with money to spend. Customers need their own sources of income, whether they are running a business or working on a farm. All parts of a local economy are interdependent. When one part of the system does not work properly, everyone loses.
UNDP's area-based approach creates change not in isolated pockets, but across an entire local system. By supporting savings groups that pool capital, providing loans that unlock entrepreneurship, building greenhouses that improve nutrition, and constructing flood walls that protect farmland, UNDP is helping to build a functioning local economy in Khatim-Ul-Anbia.
UNDP Afghanistan
A Community Starting from Scratch
Khatim-Ul-Anbia is a community with a difference. Most families here have either returned from abroad, or have been internally displaced. Many of the people who came here arrived with little money and few job options.
As opportunities to earn a steady income were scarce, the males of the village sometimes worked as daily laborers, earning small wages. Women stayed at home.
For the people of the village, it was a precarious existence. With no safety nets, and no savings, the community lived one bad harvest, one illness, or one unexpected expense away from disaster.
UNDP's Support: A Holistic Approach
Then, in 2025, UNDP began working with the community on a simple but powerful idea: supporting interconnected projects that would strengthen each other and multiply the impact for local families.
UNDP's intervention in Khatim-Ul-Anbia provides community members with the tools they need to rebuild their livelihoods: access to savings groups, Sharia-compliant loans, agricultural inputs, skills training, and protective infrastructure. The programme also connects different parts of the local economy so that one success feeds into another, like an ecosystem.
At the heart of this method is community-led planning, ensuring local people shape the solutions that affect their lives. This approach provides immediate income opportunities, whilst also strengthening community resilience and long-term economic development.
UNDP Afghanistan
New Opportunities for Women: The Savings Groups
For women like Fatima Sharifi, support has been transformative.
Five savings groups were formed, each with 16 women. The idea was straightforward: each woman saved 100 AFN every month. After a few months, the group had pooled together 22,400 AFN (around $350 USD). UNDP added 54,000 AFN as seed money, bringing the total to 76,400 AFN (around $1200).
With this money, Fatima's group, called "Ertqa," made a decision. Instead of lending small amounts to individual members, they would pool their resources and start something bigger: a tailoring workshop where all of them could work together.
"We thought: ‘why not create one business where all of us can work?’ " Fatima explains. "That way, we earn more together than we would separately."
They were right. The workshop now produces clothes for the community: school uniforms, traditional dresses, and everyday wear. Every month, the business brings in 112,000 AFN. Divided among the 16 members, each woman earns around 7,000 AFN ($110) per month.
More importantly, that money stays in their hands. They decide how to spend it. That choice, once unimaginable, is now their daily reality.
Small Loans that Ripple Outward
Watching the tailoring workshop succeed, other women in the community wanted to start their own businesses. But they did not have startup money. That is where UNDP's small loan program came in, offering Sharia-compliant loans to women entrepreneurs.
Fatima Shojaee, 32, was one of the first to apply. She wanted to open a clothing shop, but a bank would never have lent her the money. She had no collateral and no credit history. But UNDP selected her based on her business plan and gave her a 100,000 AFN ($1,500) loan.
Within one month, her shop was open and earning 50,000 AFN in profit. She paid back part of the loan immediately and hired another woman to help run the shop.
Here is where the ecosystem starts to work: Fatima Shojaee does not make all her own clothes. She buys some from Fatima Sharifi's tailoring workshop. The workshop gained a new regular customer. Thanks to these steady sales, the workshop earned higher income over time, which meant better wages for the women working there. And Fatima’s shop succeeded because she had affordable, quality products to sell.
One project was feeding into another. The parts of the system were beginning to connect.
UNDP Afghanistan
Food Security: A Third Piece of the System
In the village, UNDP also supported the construction of two large greenhouses, each 100 square meters. Five women and one man work in them, growing vegetables year-round. In a place where fresh food is scarce, especially in winter, this is a significant change.
Gul Dana, 35, works in one of the greenhouses. "Before, I bought vegetables from traders who brought them from far away. They were expensive and not always fresh. Now I grow them myself. My family eats better, and I sell the extra vegetables to neighbors."
In the first harvest, each greenhouse earned 7,500 AFN ($117) while feeding families in the community with fresh vegetables.
Again, this connects to the other activities. Women earning money from the tailoring workshop and the clothing shop now have income to buy fresh vegetables. Families are eating better. Children are healthier. And the greenhouse workers receive a steady income.
The connections multiply. The tailor buys vegetables. The greenhouse worker buys clothes. The shop owner buys from the workshop. Everyone gains.
The Foundation that Changed Everything
Impact at scale depends on infrastructure. None of the progress in Khatim-Ul-Anbia would have been possible without fixing a bigger problem: flooding.
In Garmi Abad, a village next to Khatim-Ul-Anbia, heavy rain every season destroyed crops and washed away farmers' incomes. Del Ahmad, a local farmer, remembers the uncertainty that defined his life.
"In 2024, the floods took everything. I lost all my crops. I had to work as a daily laborer just to eat."
UNDP built a 173-meter protection wall and improved the canal system with 100 meters of lining and a 60-meter canal box over five and a half months. The infrastructure now protects about 500 jeribs, roughly 1,000 acres, of farmland belonging to residents of both villages.
Using local labour, UNDP ensured the money stayed in the community. During construction, 70 villagers worked directly on this project, earning daily wages through cash-for-work. They were paid to build the wall themselves.
Now, Del Ahmad plants his crops with confidence. "I know the floods won't destroy them. I can plan ahead. I don't have to worry every time it rains."
When farmers can grow crops reliably, they have food to eat and money to spend. That money goes to the tailor, the clothing shop, the greenhouse. The community becomes stable and economically self-reliant. The land is secure, and so are the people who depend on it.
Connecting the Whole Community
Boman Ali Mozaffari, a community leader, has watched all of this change unfolding in his town. A year ago, families in Khatim-Ul-Anbia were trapped in uncertainty. Men waited for work opportunities that rarely came. Women stayed home, their skills unused. Farmers lost everything when floods came. There were no choices. Only survival.
When the flood wall was built, farmers like Del Ahmad were able to plan ahead instead of fearing the next rain. They could decide what to plant and when to invest, knowing their land is secure.
When savings groups formed, women like Fatima gained the choice to work together and build a business that sustains 16 families. She now chooses how to spend her income and how to support her siblings.
When Fatima Shojaee received her loan, she gained the choice to become an entrepreneur. A bank would have said no. With UNDP's support, she opened a shop, hired another woman, and now decides how to grow her business.
When the greenhouses were built, Gul Dana gained the choice to feed her family with fresh vegetables from her own community instead of relying on distant traders.
This is development done differently: connected activities, changing lives, growing the economy.
A Systems Approach to Local Recovery
Together, these interventions illustrate UNDP's area-based approach, which strengthens not only individual businesses, but the entire ecosystem around them: savings, entrepreneurship, nutrition, and protective infrastructure.
By restoring the links between workshop, shop, greenhouse, farm, and home, UNDP is helping rebuild a thriving local economy in Khatim-Ul-Anbia.
The numbers tell part of the story: around 146 people now have long-term, sustainable jobs in this community. Another 100 farmers in both villages have sustained their income. And 141 community members earned immediate income through cash-for-work during the construction of the wall and canal.
But the deeper story is about what those numbers mean. A woman who once had nothing now earns a wage and commands respect. A farmer who once lost everything now plants with confidence. A mother who once waited for traders now grows her own food. A community that once worried about tomorrow now builds for it.
A year ago, people were desperate. Now they have choices in their lives, and, at its core, that is what is development is about.
