Prime Minister Gordon Brown held a roundtable with influential African leaders, finance ministers and central bankers as part of an outreach event on 16 March organised in central London in the run-up to the London Summit of the G20 group of emerging and developed countries on 2 April.

The Prime Minister opened the roundtable saying that it was the duty of all countries during the current recession to 'relieve the pressures people were feeling from the downturn'. He said: 'African knows more about these problems than any continent in the world.' He said all countries must be involved in the building the road to recovery and acknowledged than many African countries wanted reform of the governance of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. 'I believe that that wish will come out of the G20 meeting,' he said.

He said every continent must act to protect its people from the impact of the banking failures. 'You have seen a crisis spread from the West and which is now affecting the poorest countries most,' he said. He added that this year would be the first in 30 years that trade volumes have fallen. 'We have to find a way in which we can stop protectionism, encourage people to sign up to Doha, [the global trade agreement], which has the effect of releasing £4bn of resources for infrastructure, and make trade credits available that will enable trade to flow around the world.'

'For the outcome of this G20 meeting we want there to be immediate action, medium-term reforms that are necessary for our financial system and we want the big reforms to take place in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that were set up in the 1940s but do not meet all the needs that we have in 2009. I think you can look at this as one of the problems that this globalising world has got to deal with: we have problems of climate change, problems of great inequalities between nations [and] the problem of financial stability. If we can solve these big problems of globalisation then we could say that the global economy can start to work in the interests of all those that depend upon it and that we are on the way to building a global society where people can work together for the future.'

Mansur Muhtar, the Nigerian finance minister, said a trade deal was 'critical'. 'The risks this global crisis pose to many countries means there's growing political pressure to revert to protectionism,' he said. 'In this context we must do everything possible to ensure that we have agreements in place to help boost world trade.' He said protectionist policies are a 'no win' situation for countries as they protect inefficient industries at the cost of triggering retaliatory measures. 'When we have these crises, the tendency is for people to call for more protectionism to protect our jobs, our industries, and shield ourselves.'

He said African countries had been 'coordinating closely' in the run up to the London Summit via the Group of 10 African finance ministers and central bankers. 'There is a strategic consensus over the magnitude and intensity of the impact of the crisis on African and the need to enlist the support of developed countries,' he said. He added that the group had put a list of specific recommendations to the G20, which he said would mitigate the impact of the crisis and pave the way to sustainable growth.

Trevor Manuel, the South African Finance Minister and Chair of the Group of 10, said a crisis that originated in developed countries was now hurting developing regions such as Africa. 'Markets have seized up, trade has declined, government revenues have dried up, fiscal surpluses have turned into deep deficits,' he said. 'We face a situation where governments are less able to provide services.' He said that added in the risk that overseas development aid might 'diminish or dry up' and the outlook for the continent was 'dire' without major intervention from the developed world.

Youssef Boutros Ghali, the Egyptian Finance Minister, said that Gordon Brown was the best-placed of all global leaders to lead the reform of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 'If anyone can chart a course towards reforming the IMF, it is him,' he said. He said he planned to work with Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, to draw up a plan for reform that was feasible to achieve in the short run.

He warned that there were now two types of protectionism: 'traditional' protectionism that involved the use or barriers and tariffs and 'financial' protectionism where countries favour their banks and demand they prefer domestic over international lending. 'That is a lot more pernicious and a lot more subtle and a lot more destructive because it disrupts capital flows around the world,' he said. 'This is the type we should be very watchful of and take measures to counteract.'