A common concern among women around the world is the well-being of their families. Nowhere is this more critical than in Afghanistan, which has one of the highest child mortality rates in the world. Nearly one quarter of the children will not reach age five. One Afghan woman in 15 will die in childbirth or the complications that stem from it.

Afghan children like this young boy in west Kabul have a brighter future now that their mothers are able to get them the preventive health care they need, including vaccinations against polio and other childhood diseases. Photo: Jennifer Lindsey/USAID

At the end of Taliban rule, only about one third of the country's districts had a functioning health clinic. Because much of Afghanistan is rural and mountainous, reaching a clinic often requires many days of travel, and many children die from diarrhea, pneumonia, polio, cholera and tuberculosis.

Approximately 40 percent of the Afghan population has no access to basic health care, and many women must travel great distances for medical treatment for themselves and their children. Photo: Linda Bartlett, Center for Disease Control

Three generations have come to visit this recently opened health clinic. While his grandmother and mother wait to see a health worker, a young boy takes a few tentative steps. Photo: Gary Cook/USAID

A young girl from Kulangar in rural Logar gets water from a new hand-pumped well. Before the installation of the well, she and the rest of her family and neighbors got water from a nearby stream that was covered with a green film. Beneath the surface, thousands of white worms writhed. A water shortage forces many to settle for streams, canals and standing pools that cause severe sickness and even death. Hand-pumped wells like this provide families across Afghanistan with clean drinking water for their homes and help prevent illnesses caused by poor sanitation. Photo: Matthew Herrick, Chemonics, Inc.