Widespread Pakistan Flood Damage Prompts Soros to Pledge $5-Million in Aid

Amid growing dismay over the humanitarian crisis in Pakistan, the billionaire philanthropist George Soros is directing his foundations to contribute $5-million to help flood victims there.

Mr. Soros’s Open Society Foundations gave an initial $50,000 to Brac Pakistan, an antipoverty group, to provide relief to people in flooded parts of the country. But as the crisis deepened, the Open Society Foundation in Pakistan asked for more.

“We need everyone to pitch in to the extent they can,” said Absar Alam, head of the Open Society Foundation in Pakistan, in a statement. “While the government and people of Pakistan are struggling to organize and manage relief efforts, the disaster is much bigger than what they alone can handle.”

The money will be used for food, clean water, tents, medicine, and other emergency supplies, as well as for reconstruction projects such as rebuilding roads and bridges. Nonprofit groups are invited to apply for the money by the Open Society Foundation in Pakistan.

So far, U.S. aid groups have raised relatively little to help flood victims. Catholic Relief Services has raised $538,000 from private donors, Mercy Corps has raised $300,000, and Save the Children has brought in $246,000. Less well-known groups have received much smaller sums.