International organisations have been competing for the ears of the Group of 20 leaders this week, yet their message has been the same: the economic backdrop to the summit is grim; the recession is now global; it is deep; and it threatens to be prolonged.
The International Monetary Fund expects global economic output to fall this year by 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent, the worst performance since the second world war.
This gloomy forecast, made in mid-March, was upstaged this week by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the rich countries' club based in Paris. It expects members' total output to fall by 4.3 per cent and for unemployment to reach 10 per cent, with few exceptions.