Editor's note: Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute and a professor at Columbia University. He also serves as special advisor to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. From 2002 to 2006, he was director of the U.N. Millennium Project. He is president and co-founder of Millennium Promise, a nonprofit organization aimed at ending extreme global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. He has twice been named among the 100 most influential leaders in the world by Time magazine and is the author of the bestsellers "Common Wealth" and "The End of Poverty."



Jeff Sachs says the G-20 countries must take steps to cushion the poor from the financial crisis.



(CNN) -- The G-20 meeting in London, England, on April 2 will be watched by the entire world with urgency and with a yearning for hope, vision and programmatic clarity.



The preparatory work is not adequate. The G-20 discussions do not move sufficiently beyond financial regulation. I would like to suggest the following main points for G-20 leadership in the global recovery.



The G-20 needs to combine stimulus, economic development and sustainability: stimulus to get the world recession reversed, development to ensure that all of the world (not merely the rich countries or the G-20) shares in the benefits, and sustainability to address the world's grave risks of climate change, water stress and loss of biodiversity.



The world's 3 billion poor, especially the 1 billion poorest of the poor, are suffering powerful and destabilizing blows from the crisis, and these will get worse and threaten global security unless there is specific attention and action.



The G-20 cannot limit its focus to regulating the financial sector, reforming the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, avoiding protectionism and reciting the measures that individual countries are taking. This would leave the world gasping for direction and hope.



The G-20 must offer a vision that is big enough to quell global fears and action bold enough to protect the desperately poor while guiding the cooperative decision-making of the world's economic authorities.



The G-20 must push forward based on real policy coordination. The world does not have a system of effective cooperation. The United States, for example, does not engage in comprehensive and deep coordination with other countries. The poor countries, with half the world's population, and the poorest countries, with roughly one-fifth of the world's population, have not been brought into the equation.



The G-20 package for stimulus should include:



First, fulfillment by all countries of stimulus measures already announced and a commitment to undertake new joint stimulus measures, especially priority public outlays on infrastructure, the social safety net and sustainable energy, as may be needed during the coming years.



Second, establishment of a high-level G-20 coordination group, backed especially by China, the European Union, Japan and the United States, to work full-time on coordinating monetary, fiscal and financial policies for stimulus and long-term recovery. Such cooperative macroeconomic programming does not now exist.



Third, increased currency support extended from the world's five major central banks (the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the People's Bank of China) for emerging market economies facing the loss of loans from international banks (e.g. Eastern Europe). The Fed's currency swap lines to Brazil, Mexico, Korea and Singapore last fall played an important stabilizing role. The other central banks can and should do more, as can the Fed vis-à-vis other countries.



Fourth, a G-20 commitment to gradual and orderly currency readjustments to help rebalance the world's financial and trade flows. The Asian currencies should gradually appreciate against the euro, which in turn should appreciate gradually against the dollar. Squabbling about bilateral rates between the dollar and Chinese renmenbi should be put to rest.



G-20 actions for the poor should include:



First, establishment of an urgent special food security program, which would make grants to low-income, food-deficit countries (including Africa, Haiti, Afghanistan and elsewhere
What group must do more than just financial regulation What number of poor are suffering from the global economic crisis Who is meeting?
The G-20 discussions especially the 1 billion poorest of the G-20
question: What group must do more than just financial regulation, answer: The G-20 discussions | question: What number of poor are suffering from the global economic crisis, answer: especially the 1 billion poorest of the | question: Who is meeting?, answer: G-20