The World Bank agreed to help developing countries strengthen their economies, bolster their financial systems and protect the poor against the financial turmoil in international markets. Robert Zoellick, the bank's president, said the contagion affecting the global economy "has been a manmade catastrophe and responses to overcome it lie in all our hands."
He spoke as the U.S. moved to shore up Wall Street and financial institutions and the 15 countries that use the euro agreed in Paris to temporarily guarantee bank refinancing to ease the credit squeeze. Speaking at a joint news conference with Zoellick, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, endorsed the European move and said he expected markets to react favorably, "although you never can be sure what will happen."
Strauss-Kahn also called for quick implementation of the $700 billion U.S. rescue plan, which includes the government buying part-ownership in an array of banks. Zoellick said that as the current crisis has unfolded, people in the United States and Europe reacted first with confusion, then anger, then fear.