The Prime Minister, in Pittsburgh for the G20 summit, is seeking support for a plan to formalise economic co-ordination through the international grouping in the years ahead.
With US President Barack Obama pushing similar proposals, Mr Brown is confident he will see agreement on what he calls his “compact for jobs and growth”.
“Without concerted action there is a danger of years of low growth and low employment,” he told Sky News.
“But with concerted action, I believe that we can have higher growth and I believe that we can get unemployment down.”
Under his proposals the G20 would become the leading international economic grouping, tasked with preventing future crises of the kind which has convulsed the world over the past 18 months.
It would set in place a framework for regular leaders’ meetings, after which countries would present their economic policies for review to ensure they were all moving in the same direction.
The assembled leaders had a first chance to discuss the proposals at a working dinner last night before today’s main meeting.
The summit will also discuss the thorny issue of when to turn off the tap on the “fiscal stimulus” packages, agreed at the last G20 summit in London in April which is pumping one trillion dollars of government support into the global economy.
Mr Brown said he remained concerned that reining them in before recovery is securely in place could choke off growth and tip the global economy back into recession.
“We don’t yet have a recovery. The recovery is not automatic,” he said.
“The right thing to do is to maintain the situation where the world is together stimulating each of our economies so that we return to growth.
“It has got to be done, otherwise you cannot be certain we will return to growth.”
The Prime Minister is also hoping his latest appearance on an international economic platform with give him a much-needed fillip domestically as he prepares for next week’s Labour Party Conference in Brighton.
He acknowledged that the state of the economy would be a crucial issue in his forthcoming General Election battle with the Conservatives, who continue to lead in the polls.
“I think what people are saying is that until they can see the results of all the action we have taken in getting the economy back to recovery, they have suspended judgment,” he said.
“I accept that I have got to show people that the action that we have taken is bringing results and will bring greater results in the months to come.”
The scene for today’s summit was set by G20 finance ministers at a meeting in London earlier this month, at which they agreed to “continue to implement decisively our necessary financial support measures and expansionary monetary and fiscal policies... until recovery is secured”.
They agreed to French and German calls for work to begin on preparing co-ordinated “exit strategies” to rein back stimulus measures once the recovery is in place, but said it was too soon to start implementing them, as there were still concerns about the outlook for jobs and growth.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article