Britain seeks further U.N. reforms to save lives

GENEVA (Reuters) - Britain called on Tuesday for further reforms to United Nations aid agencies, saying their slow response to disasters had cost lives.

Gareth Thomas, Britain's international development minister, also warned that poor nations are likely to face increased pressure as emergencies sparked by war, climate change and high food prices become more frequent and ferocious in coming years.

Yet only one-third of the 42 countries most at risk of conflict or disaster have a U.N. humanitarian coordinator in place to give on-site leadership during a crisis, he said.

"So in some of the worst disasters there is no one on the ground to lead the international response. The brutal truth is that lack of leadership costs lives," Thomas said in a speech to humanitarian aid experts gathered in Geneva.

In Chad this year, poor coordination among aid agencies had meant drinking water was "allocated unfairly" and people in desperate need had gone thirsty, he said.

"In Georgia, a humanitarian coordinator was eventually appointed but it was quite late. I think it slowed down the response," Thomas told Reuters.

He was referring to the conflict which erupted in the province of South Ossetia on August 7, causing more than 100,000 people to flee into other parts of Georgia and southern Russia.

The United Nations has "much, much further to go" to ensure relief supplies get to those most in need worldwide, according to the Briton, who noted that higher food prices are already pushing 100 million more people into poverty and hunger.

"We need a humanitarian system that can adapt to these new pressures and make the most of the resources we have available," he said, adding that the U.N. should make pooled funds from donors ready for immediate use when disasters unfold.

A "single pot of money at country level" would allow U.N. humanitarian officials to act faster in the wake of a crisis, when lives are most at risk, he said.

"Having the U.N. with a fund to make resources available to them immediately means that individual agencies are not going to have to get out the 'begging bowl' and delay their responses on the ground to people who need shelter within 24 hours or medical aid straight away," Thomas told Reuters.

The U.N.'s Central Emergency Response Fund, set up nearly three years ago to jump-start relief operations in neglected parts of the world, should be increased to $1 billion a year by 2010, he said. It now makes about $400 million available a year.

(Editing by Laura MacInnis and Sami Aboudi)