Finance ministers from both wealthy and developing nations have called for an urgent reform of banking systems in developed countries.
A meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington said such measures were needed for global economic recovery.
The head of the IMF said progress had been made but it had been too slow.
The meeting also heard calls for more help for African countries feeling the effects of the global crisis.
Tanzania’s finance minister said the slump threatened to wipe out his country’s previous gains and that rich countries should use part of their stimulus resources to help poorer ones.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said no one at the meeting had challenged the view that reform was needed.
“I think everybody again agrees that we need to do it now and that recovery is heavily relying on that,” he said.
Mr Strauss-Kahn said all the minister present would “go back committed to speeding up the process” of such reforms.
Egyptian Finance Minister Yousef Boutros-Ghali, who chaired the meeting, said the global economy had “serious problems” but that things were “beginning to look up”.
“Carefully, cautiously we can say there is a break in the clouds,” he said. BBC
