WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Developing countries are just beginning to feel the worst consequences of the global financial crisis, despite a declaration by world leaders meeting in Pittsburgh that measures their governments implemented to address the crisis have worked, said an international alliance of Catholic development agencies.

"A 'Mission Accomplished' sign was all that was missing to make the moment perfect," said a Sept. 25 statement issued in Washington by the International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity, known as CIDSE. The alliance has its headquarters in Belgium.

The sign comment was a reference to words on a banner displayed behind President George W. Bush in 2003 when he delivered a speech in which he prematurely declared an end to major combat in Iraq.

"As the worst consequences of the crisis are beginning to be felt in (poor) countries and unemployment figures climb through the roof, they find they have limited exits open," CIDSE said. "But then this is the point of a by-invitation-only arrangement such as the Group of 20: that members can meet and decide without any need to represent, or be accountable to, governments outside the room."

Pittsburgh was the site of the G-20 summit Sept. 24-25. Representatives from the world's 19 largest national economies and the European Union met to primarily address policies and programs to deal with the impact of this past year's worldwide recession.

In a 9,000-word declaration issued at the end of the summit, the world leaders said that when they met in April their countries "agreed to do everything necessary to ensure recovery, to repair ... financial systems and to maintain the global flow of capital. It worked."

Among other things, they agreed to make the G-20 the primary forum for international economic cooperation and decided to give greater representation to developing countries in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The leaders agreed to coordinate economic policies and financial-sector rules and meet periodically to review their respective countries' policies and call on the IMF to review the policies and "help analyze whether patterns of demand and supply, credit, debt and reserves growth are supportive of strong, sustainable and balanced growth."

They also pushed for a strong framework to promote "sustainable and balanced" economic growth, the creation of good jobs "our people need," efforts to address climate change, and a phase-out of fossil-fuel subsidies but set no deadlines for action in those areas.

The leaders said the G-20 forum would supplant the Group of Eight so now more countries can be included in talks, but CIDSE said the governments of more than 170 countries still don't have a seat at the table.

Such limited representation "certainly explains the biased outcomes" said Aldo Caliari of the Center of Concern in Washington. He is director of the Rethinking Bretton Woods Project at the center, which is a member of CIDSE.

The pledge to expand representation in the IMF prompted criticism from Bernd Nilles, CIDSE's secretary-general.

The expansion proposals are clearly based on "economic-size criteria, not justice criteria," he said. "The rearrangement is not conceived in the interest of the poorest, but in the interest of ensuring emerging countries that now have more money are willing to share it in the existing institutions."

He also criticized "the notion that the IMF can police imbalances among surplus and deficit countries," calling it "a movie we already watched. Why would it end differently this time?"

He said an effort in 2006 "to empower the IMF to convene 'multilateral consultations' ... failed to stop the imbalances that eventually resulted in the global financial crisis."

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