Dual targets as money men meet

GLOBAL finance ministers and central bankers meet in Washington this week with two major goals: to address sharp disagreement over how best to tackle the post-11 September needs of the world economy and to prove they can hold a 'routine' gathering in a highly charged political atmosphere.

Returning to Washington for the first time since the terrorist attacks on the US forced the cancellation of the annual meeting last autumn, the G7 money men are under increasing pressure to spread wealth and alleviate poverty in the debt-strangled Third World.

The US and Britain are at odds over a White House plan to use grants instead of loans to aid the poorest nations. The war of words over the US proposal has softened in recent days after Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's trip through Europe to build support for US positions.

Disagreements remain, however, over how the grants, mostly for education and healthcare, would be administered, applied and funded. The US is hoping to forge a consensus this week to counter criticism that America and her allies do not do enough to fight the economic despair believed to serve as a breeding ground for terrorism.

Chancellor Gordon Brown is expected to highlight new global efforts to curb the use of the banking industry by terrorist groups. He wants to pressure countries without financial crimes units to establish them. Fewer than a third of the International Monetary Fund's 183 members have capacity to track illegal financial activities in their banking systems.

Consensus action is more important this time than ever because the institutions badly need to restore credibility. Michael Mussa, the IMF's outspoken former chief economist, recently criticised the lending agency for not averting Argentina's default and the World Bank is still stinging from a recently published book by a respected staff economist that is highly critical of the Bank's 57-year history of development aid. The internal criticism provides fuel to the dozens of protest groups that plan to demonstrate during the meetings. Officials says security will be high in post-11 September Washington.