A boy waits in the rain as villagers collect food aid in southern Ethiopia. Rich countries have found billions for bank rescues but little for the poor

At a recent private brainstorming session at United Nations headquarters in New York, Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general, heard a uniformly grim assessment of the devastating impact the global financial crisis will have on the developing world.

What began as an economic crisis was in danger of turning into a social, humanitarian, political and security meltdown that could spin out of control in the most vulnerable regions, his experts told him.