Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s president, has launched a stinging criticism of multilateral financial institutions’ role in the global crisis, and called on leaders at this weekend’s meeting of the 20 most industrialised nations to rethink the way they operate.

Mexico’s centre-right leader said that the response of organisations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the crisis had been “totally inadequate” given the size and depth of the problems. “In this financial crisis, the [multilateral] financial institutions have practically been absent.”