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UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 (Reuters) The United Nations' new global emergency fund began work with slightly more than half the 500 million dollars its director had hoped for.

The first grants from the Central Emergency Fund went to drought-stricken northeastern Africa and western Ivory Coast, where angry mobs recently burned down UN aid offices. The dollar amounts of the grants were not given.

The fund opened for business with pledges totaling just 256 million dollars from 36 donor governments. Canada, Australia, Spain and the United States were among governments announcing pledges at the launch.

The goal had been to raise 500 million dollars, but UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said the response nonetheless amounted to ''a big step'' forward as the sole source of emergency funds had previously been a UN standby loan facility of just 50 million dollars.

But international relief group Oxfam has argued the fund would need $1 billion to ensure an adequate UN response.

''The fund will make us quicker, more flexible and predictable'' in dealing with both man-made humanitarian disasters like the crisis in Sudan's western Darfur region and with natural disasters like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Egeland said yesterday.

He had asked for the fund after the tsunami, and the 191-nation UN General Assembly approved it last December.

The idea is to give the world body the ability to quickly send emergency supplies to an affected area without having to wait for international donors to send checks or make good on pledges.

The money in the fund would be continually replenished as contributions later poured in for each individual disaster.

Some 11 million people face famine in the Horn of Africa due to a long drought in the region, with Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia the hardest-hit countries.

Several hundred UN peacekeepers and aid workers were pulled out of western Ivory Coast following January riots, leaving behind a civilian population heavily dependent on outside humanitarian aid.

The rioters, mostly members of the Young Patriot movement fiercely loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo, were protesting against what they called meddling by foreign mediators trying to implement a peace plan in a nation split in two by a 2002 civil war.

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