WASHINGTON - World financial leaders pledged Sunday to do everything possible to prevent plunging stock markets from dragging down the global economy's uncertain recovery.

        They committed themselves to meeting an April deadline for a concrete proposal to set up a bankruptcy system for countries with unsustainable debt burdens. The plan was the major achievement of the annual meetings of the 184-nation International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

        Protesters had sought to disrupt the discussions by shutting down the capital. Their efforts fizzled in the face of poor turnout and an overwhelming police presence.

        Police prepared for as many as 20,000 demonstrators, but crowds only approached a few thousand mostly peaceful protesters who used puppets and banners to display their unhappiness with global capitalism.

        IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler and World Bank President James Wolfensohn said the protesters failed to appreciate the extensive reforms both institutions have undertaken to better respond to the needs of poor countries.

        But both officials acknowledged that much more needed to be done to narrow the gap between rich and poor nations; 15 percent of the world's population controls 80 percent of the income.

        “The quest for a more equal world is the quest for long-term peace - something that military power alone can never achieve,” Wolfensohn told delegates Sunday.

        Finance officials said the sluggish economy is making harder their job of promoting prosperity. The stock market declines, economic turmoil in Latin America and anxiety about possible war in Iraq have contributed to the weaker than expected recovery.

        Argentina was forced into a record default on government debt in December. Brazil's currency fell to record lows in the past week as investors fear Latin America's largest economy soon will default on its debt despite a record $30 billion loan approved by the IMF in early September.

        Billionaire investor George Soros said that while this possibility was increasing, IMF officials were “asleep at the switch.” A debt default, he said on ABC's “This Week,” could have serious repercussions on U.S. banks with loans to Brazil and American companies with plants there.

        Finance officials struck a much more positive tone. They said the United States, Europe and Japan had committed during the weekend meetings to address problems in their countries that were holding back growth.

        Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said Washington was doing its part to promote a global recovery. He said the expected the world's largest economy would return to solid growth of 3 percent to 3.5 percent “over the course of the coming year.”

        Protesters contended the IMF and World Bank were woefully short in commitments to helping poor countries. But officials of the two institutions said they were on track to achieve their part of the U.N. goal of cutting in half by 2015 the number of people in poverty.

        Both Koehler and Wolfensohn urged rich nations to make their markets more open to farm goods and other products from poor nations.

        On Saturday, the IMF's policymaking panel of 24 finance ministers directed the agency to develop a concrete bankruptcy plan in time for the committee's meeting on April 12.

        The idea of allowing countries with unsustainable debt burdens to declare bankruptcy already has generated stiff opposition from international banks, which want to be repaid in full on the billions of dollars they have loaned developing countries.

        Brazilian Finance Minister Pedro Malan said he was not sure an entirely new way to deal with defaults was needed. In recent years, he said, Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan and Ecuador were able to force restructuring of their debt burdens.

        But British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said that over the past five years, stretching from the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 to Argentina's default, a consensus was emerging that the current ad hoc process was not working.

        “There is a far greater understanding now that this has got to be done,” Brown said.

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