Emergency Relief Fund

The high mountain regions of the Tibetan Plateau and across Central Asia suffer from some of the world’s harshest environmental conditions. Shrinking natural resources, especially water, often leads to rising insecurity… Snowstorms, drought, earthquakes and conflicts also may arise… Where possible, Plateau Perspectives aims to continue partnerships even in desperate times in the regions where it serves.

Furthermore, these conditions are increasingly exacerbated by climate change, in many places leading to vanishing glaciers – with less water for millions of people and their crops in the future.

Plateau Perspectives’ charters already recognize and support the need for us to respond to desperate situations as they arise, under the broad umbrella of emergency aid or relief. In the past, we have helped alleviate people’s suffering and rebuild livelihoods in the aftermath of extreme snowstorms on the Tibetan plateau and following the Yushu earthquake in April 2010. Now, as we expand our area of work and include remote mountainous regions of Central Asia, we also face situations of drought and of environment and/or human-induced insecurity and conflict. In Afghanistan alone, for example, many 100,000s of people are now refugees, with BBC News and Norwegian Refugee Council reporting that more people are now displaced by drought than by the Taliban.

Emergency relief may be needed to help alleviate people’s immediate suffering or to aid in their recovery with support for enhanced livelihoods that promote resilience for the future. Most often, such support is directed toward people residing in the target mountain regions. Sometimes, however, people have had to flee and are now refugees from conflict/insecurity or from environmental degradation, as a matter of survival. As emergency situations arise and financial resources allow, Plateau Perspectives is ready to respond with aid in various forms, financially or in-kind. For this purpose, a designated ’emergency fund’ has been created, with the aim to enable us to respond in timely fashion to emergency situations as they arise, including support to people affected by natural disasters and assisting individuals and families who have had to flee their home due to disaster or crisis.