By Patrick Worsnip UNITED NATIONS, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Donor countries are still giving generously to a U.N. emergency aid fund to deal quickly with sudden disasters, despite the global financial crisis, the U.N. aid chief said on Friday. At a conference on Thursday, more than 60 countries pledged a total of $380 million for 2009 operations by the Central Emergency Response Fund, set up after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, John Holmes told a news conference. Although that was less than the $420 million pledged a year ago, Holmes said that because of the sharp appreciation of the U.S. dollar countries were giving more in terms of their own currencies -- $435 million at last year's exchange rates. This year's pledges also fell short of the target of $450 million but Holmes said extra contributions usually come in after the initial pledging conference. "The contributions will rise in 2009," he said. Since it was set up, the fund, which can approve allocations in as little as 48 hours and is seen as politically neutral, has disbursed over $1 billion in 65 countries. This year, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took $100 million from it to aid people hit by rising food prices. Holmes said humanitarian needs were likely to rise next year due to climate change, the food crisis, continuing conflicts and the world financial crisis. But he said predictions that countries would be less generous because of the crisis were "for the moment a fear, not a reality" because aid budgets had not so far declined. "What we saw yesterday confirms the argument that for the moment intentions and generosity are not changing, in the sense that we saw many more increases than falls in pledges for 2009," he said. U.N. officials are worried, however, that rich countries' overseas development budgets will decline in the next two years and one ambassador told Thursday's conference that pledges were poor compared with billions in bailouts for banks and firms. "The contrast is striking to the enormous amounts made available on very short notice to deal with the failures of the financial sector," said Norwegian envoy Morten Wetland. "Money doesn't seem to be a problem when the problem is money." Norway is the fourth largest donor to the U.N. fund, with nearly $43 million pledged for next year. The biggest donor is Britain, with more than $61 million. The United States has not contributed to the 2009 fund, saying it responds bilaterally. (Editing by Peter Cooney)
