Developing countries will this week demand a louder voice at the World Bank and the IMF, now that they are contributing more funds and it’s a euro zone country, Greece that is in need of a rescue plan.

The United States and Europe, which have long dominated the Washington-based international institutions, acknowledge the growing clout of the emerging market economies such as China and Brazil but are loathe to part with their power.

Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called BRIC club of big emerging economies, called for swift reforms in the global institutions when their leaders gathered in Brasilia last week ahead of key financial meetings in Washington.

That was like “a pressurising device to make it obvious to the developed world that our global organisations are no longer representative of the world economy,” said Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill, who coined the term BRIC in 2001.

Brazil and other developing countries have been calling for a 6.0 per cent shift in voting power at the World Bank.

That would bring the representation between developing and developed countries at the institution to parity.

“We can no longer accept a situation in which the majority of the world’s people remain inadequately represented in such bodies,” South African President Jacob Zuma said during a recent visit to Brazil.

A Brazilian government source conceded that Brazil was pessimistic about achieving an equal say for developed and developing economies at the World Bank.

Brazil would keep pushing for parity in the long term but that a smaller shift of a little over 3.0 per cent and up to 4.0 per cent would be acceptable for now, Rogerio Studart, who represents Brazil and other developing countries on the World Bank’s board, told reports.