Global cooperation, rather than a retreat from globalization, is the best approach for solving the current financial crisis, world leaders said on Friday.

When attending the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, leaders from Britain, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa agreed that global cooperation could set a pattern for dealing with other international challenges, such as climate change, poverty and energy security.

They called for coordinated actions on a number of areas, including fiscal and monetary policy measures to stabilize the global financial system and revive economic growth, reform and recapitalization of the major multilateral lending institutions, and a resumption of stalled free trade talks to combat a dangerous turn to protectionism.

Public and private sectors should work together to solve global problems, the leaders said.

"We need to recognize that these problems were created by humans and can be solved by humans," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.

"Rather than losing faith and letting the protectionists take over, or returning to a failed laissez-faire model that says there is nothing we can do, we have to grapple with these problems and prove we can come together and solve them," he added.

Brown called on governments to consider "radical options" for dealing with the problem, such as risk-sharing schemes that would insure banks and other investors against further losses on toxic assets, saying, "We need international discussion on what is the best model."

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said one key lesson from the previous crisis in the 1930s was the urgency for working out a policy response, recognizing that delay increases both the economic damage and the ultimate cost to taxpayers.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo cited his country's experience during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis as an example of how great the costs of a financial rescue can be.

He said South Korea spent the equivalent of 16 percent of its GDP shoring up the country's corporations and financial institutions during the crisis.

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said developed countries should put their own governance in order if they want to be offered a better seat at the international table.

Motlanthe also called for a speedy conclusion to the stalled Doha Round of multilateral trade talks.

Meanwhile, the leaders warned that the financial crisis might be generating a protectionist backlash in some countries, arguing that such measures would risk a repetition of the disastrous collapse in world trade during the 1930s.