Finance and development ministers from around the world next week will warn of considerable downside risks to the global economy, and call for an effort to protect the world's poor, according to the draft of a communique they plan to issue after a meeting on Saturday.

Leaders of the five largest emerging economies will meet July 13-16 to finalize their first joint project: a new international development bank. The countries, known as BRICS (Brazil, Russia,India, China, and South Africa) have spent many years trying to find a common goal. Together they have more than 40 percent of the world’s population. And they share an interest in challenging many of the norms set by the West. Yet each nation is quite different in governance and ambition.

African governments and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have agreed on the urgent need to harness the continent's rapid economic growth, as unrest and other political challenges temper exuberance about the future. At a meeting in Maputo, the IMF, finance ministers and central bank governors declared that a deeper structural transformation is needed so that ordinary citizens can benefit from the boom.

The United States, hoping to avert economic chaos in Ukraine, is prepared to send financial support to supplement aid from the International Monetary Fund, the White House said on Monday. "The United States, working with partners around the world, stands ready to provide support for Ukraine as it takes the reforms it needs to, to get back to economic stability," White House spokesman Jay Carney told a news briefing.

The American-led global economic and financial system is broken — you have only to look at the shenanigans in Washington these last few weeks to see that — so where are the clear thinkers who can dream of a plan to fix things, and where are the practical politicians who dare to try to shape a new world? It is time for Japan to take a lead.