From 1996, Sarah Chayes was Paris reporter for National Public Radio. She was dispatched to a number of conflict and post-conflict zones. Her work during the Kosovo crisis of 1999 earned her the Foreign Press Club and Sigma Delta Chi awards, along with her NPR colleagues.

Sarah left reporting in 2002 to remain in the field in Afghanistan. With President Hamid Karzai's older brother Qayum, she established Afghans for Civil Society in Kandahar. Among other projects, ACS rebuilt a village, and launched a radio station and a successful women's income generation project. In 2004, she left ACS to focus on economic development, and since May 2005 has been running Arghand, a privately funded venture that buys products from local farmers and turns them into seven varieties of soaps.